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rivertonrat's reviews
135 reviews
The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.75
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
This book was a good read. On an anti-automobile crusade, I've been reading lots of books about transportation problems and solutions, and am finding that both the problems and the solutions may be perceived differently by various writers. Some points from this book that were thought-provoking (for me):
1) I am not an engineer but worked in an engineering environment (software systems for quality control) and his opinions on engineering struck a chord. His chart comparing transportation engineering priorities (most important - travel speed & traffic volume) vs human values (most important - safety & cost) reinforces the notion that our roads do not take pedestrian or cyclist safety seriously. Not because it is impossible but because the characteristics to be measured are defined with an auto-centric view,
2) Error Proofing is another engineering practice I admire, but it was so interesting to see how priorities skewed the results - we widen and flatten roads, clear the sightlines and remove obstacles to prevent cars from running into things. But perversely, the clear path encourages speeding and a diminished sense of risk, often leading to tragic consequences.
3) A basic tenet of the book was that Roads and Streets should not be intermixed. Roads were defined as highly travelled roads suited for speed that enabled a travel to get from point A to point B and streets defined as more of a destination, useful for residences, shops, restaurants - walkable and social. An interstate highway with limited access is a perfect road, with limited access and minimal maneuverability (no turn-lanes, intersections, etc.) , thus allowing for higher speeds. When we try to combine the two, we get a stroad - a street with housing or places of business that require many access points and intersections, but with the high speeds that characterize a road. Wrecks are common on stroads. I have heard of the stroad concept, but thought the definition here was very helpful. It makes me wonder how we can rework current street layouts to address this and if that is even feasible.
4) Projects are driven by funding sources and poorly understood incentives, and a "successful" project can wreak havoc in any number of ways.
5) His main argument rested on evaluating success as a metric of wealth creation: basically seeing transportation as an expense or liability that was only useful if it added to the economic wellbeing of the location that was footing the bill. This was a new way of looking at it for me, and it made sense, but other authors address this from an environmental or quality of life aspect. So some of his conclusions are a little different from others.
Bottom line - it is a pretty quick read and very well worth it for anyone who walks, bikes or drives. Really makes you look at street infrastructure differently.
1) I am not an engineer but worked in an engineering environment (software systems for quality control) and his opinions on engineering struck a chord. His chart comparing transportation engineering priorities (most important - travel speed & traffic volume) vs human values (most important - safety & cost) reinforces the notion that our roads do not take pedestrian or cyclist safety seriously. Not because it is impossible but because the characteristics to be measured are defined with an auto-centric view,
2) Error Proofing is another engineering practice I admire, but it was so interesting to see how priorities skewed the results - we widen and flatten roads, clear the sightlines and remove obstacles to prevent cars from running into things. But perversely, the clear path encourages speeding and a diminished sense of risk, often leading to tragic consequences.
3) A basic tenet of the book was that Roads and Streets should not be intermixed. Roads were defined as highly travelled roads suited for speed that enabled a travel to get from point A to point B and streets defined as more of a destination, useful for residences, shops, restaurants - walkable and social. An interstate highway with limited access is a perfect road, with limited access and minimal maneuverability (no turn-lanes, intersections, etc.) , thus allowing for higher speeds. When we try to combine the two, we get a stroad - a street with housing or places of business that require many access points and intersections, but with the high speeds that characterize a road. Wrecks are common on stroads. I have heard of the stroad concept, but thought the definition here was very helpful. It makes me wonder how we can rework current street layouts to address this and if that is even feasible.
4) Projects are driven by funding sources and poorly understood incentives, and a "successful" project can wreak havoc in any number of ways.
5) His main argument rested on evaluating success as a metric of wealth creation: basically seeing transportation as an expense or liability that was only useful if it added to the economic wellbeing of the location that was footing the bill. This was a new way of looking at it for me, and it made sense, but other authors address this from an environmental or quality of life aspect. So some of his conclusions are a little different from others.
Bottom line - it is a pretty quick read and very well worth it for anyone who walks, bikes or drives. Really makes you look at street infrastructure differently.
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
4.5
This book is contemplative and slow-moving, very different from your typical book. I've been reading lots of popular fiction recently, with convoluted timelines and an overabundance of characters. This was very much the opposite and therefore a refreshing read. The characters spend their days in a bookshop and have philosophical conversations about bookshops, work, reading, and happiness. I found the conversations thought provoking and enjoyable.
Here is a snippet that I enjoyed and will give you a sense of the tone:
What was the biggest change in the past year for the bookshop? Yeongju didn't make any immediate changes when she returned from her month-long trip. Instead, she continued to stick to the status quo for two months before she started implementing the plans she'd deliberated over during that time. Hyunam-dong Bookshop's charms would lie in the depth and diversity of its collection, she decided. Her idea was to focus on curating books with depth, even if it might be a little challenging for customers. As for promoting diversity, it was decided that the bookshop would stop carrying bestsellers.
Bestsellers had always been a point of contention for her. Looking at the titles that rose through the ranks of the top sellers, she was often frustrated. Not because the books themselves had any issues. Once a book made the bestseller list, it would continue to stay there for a long time. Gradually, she became convinced that bestsellers were the reason the publishing industry had lost its diversity.
Standing in front of the bestseller section in major bookshops felt like looking at the state of the publishing industry - highly skewed towards a few titles. Whose fault was it? Nobody's. It was simply a reflection of a society which doesn't read. Faced with this reality, what booksellers should do, even if they only played a small role, was to introduce a diverse range of books to customers. To show them the publishing world wasn't made up of only a few bestsellers, or big-shot authors. To impress upon them that there were many more awesome books and authors out there, waiting to be discovered.
For that to happen, she decided to exclude bestsellers from the bookshop. If there was a book that became an overnight hit thanks to a famous person who mentioned it on TV, she would no longer bring in more copies of it after they sold out their existing stock. Not because it wasn't a good book, but to uphold diversity. In such cases, she
would seek out books with similar themes and stock them instead. Customers who came in looking for the title would be directed to these books.
She wasn't sure if this fresh approach would work for customers. One thing was certain, Sungchul was completely charmed.
"A book becomes a bestseller because it's a bestseller". He told Yeongju that he felt a sense of camaraderie, seeing how their industries were facing the same issues. May more people get to know more good books and good movies, he liked to say. This was Plan 3 she'd made even before the trip: to take away the bestsellers.
Here is a snippet that I enjoyed and will give you a sense of the tone:
What was the biggest change in the past year for the bookshop? Yeongju didn't make any immediate changes when she returned from her month-long trip. Instead, she continued to stick to the status quo for two months before she started implementing the plans she'd deliberated over during that time. Hyunam-dong Bookshop's charms would lie in the depth and diversity of its collection, she decided. Her idea was to focus on curating books with depth, even if it might be a little challenging for customers. As for promoting diversity, it was decided that the bookshop would stop carrying bestsellers.
Bestsellers had always been a point of contention for her. Looking at the titles that rose through the ranks of the top sellers, she was often frustrated. Not because the books themselves had any issues. Once a book made the bestseller list, it would continue to stay there for a long time. Gradually, she became convinced that bestsellers were the reason the publishing industry had lost its diversity.
Standing in front of the bestseller section in major bookshops felt like looking at the state of the publishing industry - highly skewed towards a few titles. Whose fault was it? Nobody's. It was simply a reflection of a society which doesn't read. Faced with this reality, what booksellers should do, even if they only played a small role, was to introduce a diverse range of books to customers. To show them the publishing world wasn't made up of only a few bestsellers, or big-shot authors. To impress upon them that there were many more awesome books and authors out there, waiting to be discovered.
For that to happen, she decided to exclude bestsellers from the bookshop. If there was a book that became an overnight hit thanks to a famous person who mentioned it on TV, she would no longer bring in more copies of it after they sold out their existing stock. Not because it wasn't a good book, but to uphold diversity. In such cases, she
would seek out books with similar themes and stock them instead. Customers who came in looking for the title would be directed to these books.
She wasn't sure if this fresh approach would work for customers. One thing was certain, Sungchul was completely charmed.
"A book becomes a bestseller because it's a bestseller". He told Yeongju that he felt a sense of camaraderie, seeing how their industries were facing the same issues. May more people get to know more good books and good movies, he liked to say. This was Plan 3 she'd made even before the trip: to take away the bestsellers.