Now Read This: 42 Book Recommendations from the Staff of 99% Invisible

Aside from flag design and plaque questions, one of the things we get asked about most at 99% Invisible is recommended reading material. Being researchers and storytellers, we read a lot of books (and being audio people, a number of us listen to books as well). Some of these are related to design and built environments while others reflect the varied interest of the people who produce the show.

Roman Mars

• Boom Town by Sam Anderson – the founding of Oklahoma City
• Bad Blood by John Carreyrou – a fraught Silicon Valley startup
• Underbug by Lisa Margonelli – a tale of termites and technology
• Moneyball by Michael Lewis – the art of winning an unfair game
• Evicted by Matthew Desmond – poverty and profit in a US city
• Stiff by Mary Roach – the curious lives of human cadavers

Avery Trufelman

• Subculture by Dick Hebdige – punks, music and style in the UK
• The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank – business of counterculture
• Shoals of Time by Gavan Daws – a history of the Hawaiian Islands
• Denim by Emma McClendon – the world’s most ubiquitous fabric
• The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair – a history of colors
• How to Read a Dress by Lydia Edwards – guide to changing fashions

Katie Mingle

• Educated by Tara Westover – from survivalist family to PhD student
• On Trails by Robert Moor – the art, design and experience of trails
• In The Distance by Hernan Diaz – a boy heads East from the Old West
• Burial Rites by Hanna Kent – aftermath of murder in 1800s Iceland
• Marlena by Julie Buntin – death of one girl defines the other’s life
• Mistress Spy by Pamela Mingle – a rakish spy and a sinister lie

Kurt Kohlstedt

• The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs – a classic
• How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand – architectural spaces over time
• Pop-Up City by Jeroen Beekmans & Joop de Boer – tactical urbanism
• BLDGBLOG Book by Geoff Manaugh – fantastical built environments
• The City & The City by China Mieville – twin cities occupy one space
• The Sprawl Trilogy by William Gibson – original cities of cyberpunk

Sharif Youssef

• Attached by Amir Levine & Rachel Heller – science of connection
• The Course Of Love by Alain De Botton – a novel of romantic love
• Slavery’s Exiles by Sylviane Diouf – the story of America’s maroons
• Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward – memoir in and beyond Mississippi
• Theft By Finding by David Sedaris – the secret diaries of a comedian
• The Worry Cure by Robert Leahy – seven steps to stop worrying

Emmett FitzGerald

• The Man in the Glass House by Mark Lamster – on Philip Johnson
• There There by Tommy Orange – the legacy of living on stolen land
• Thermal Delight in Architecture by Lisa Heschong – climate control

Joe Rosenberg

• The Great Passage by Shiwon Miura  – the creation of a dictionary
• Chess Story by Stefan Zweig – the mystery behind a grandmaster
• Shyness & Dignity by Dag Solstad – nuanced story of a teacher in Oslo
• House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – a portrait of New York aristocracy
• Red Mars by Kim Stanely Robinson – ambitious colonists on Mars
• The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington by Charles Rosenberg – what if the British had captured Washington?

Vivian Le

• The Birth of Korean Cool by Euny Hong – conquering pop culture
• The Mirage Factory by Gary Krist – on illusion and creating Los Angeles
• The Wes Anderson Collection – art inspired by Wes Anderson films