Book description
Shortlisted for the Katharine Briggs Award 2020
'Deirdre Mask's book was just up my Strasse, alley, avenue and boulevard.' -Simon Garfield, author of Just My Type
'Fascinating ... intelligent but thoroughly accessible ... full of surprises' - Sunday Times
Starting with a simple question, 'what do street addresses do?', DeirdreâŚ
Why read it?
1 author picked The Address Book as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I remember the first time I realized I was in a city without addressesâDubai, as it happenedâand I was dumbfounded that such a place could exist, let alone succeed. In this book, Deirdre Mask unearths the hidden history of street addressesâa relatively recent invention from the Age of Enlightenmentâand notes how many places ranging from rural West Virginia to hyper-modern Tokyo and Seoul do just fine without them.
In this wild ride from addressless ancient Rome to meticulously gridded and numbered Chicago, Mask explains how addresses have been used to keep track of citizens (for both good and ill) andâŚ
From Daniel's list on The best books that âreadâ cities in an unconventional way.
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