What I’ve Been Reading
2020

• Steven Lewy — Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything
• R. Buckminster Fuller — Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
• Jana Revedin — Jeder Hier Nennt Mich Frau Bauhaus: Das Leben der Ise Frank “Everyone Here Calls Me Mrs. Bauhaus” — A fictionalized biography of Ise Gropius, née Frank
• Rebecca Arnold — Fashion: A Very Short Introduction
• Hans Ulrich Obrist — Ways of Curating
• Chuck Klosterman — But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Was the Past [Reread, first read in 2016] I do have to admit that I like the premise of the book much more than the book itself, which is a bit digressive and doesn’t have the philosophical depth that would be appropriate for the subject.
• Tim Harford — Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy
• apartamento: an everyday life interiors magazine — issue #24 (Autumn/Winter 2019–20)
• Armin Nassehi: Muster — Theorie der digitalen Gesellschaft (“Theory of the Digital Society”)
• Timothy Gowers — Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction
• Gestaltung denken: Grundlagentexte zu Design und Architektur (ed. Klaus Thomas Edelmann, Gerrit Terstiege) A phenomenal collection of the most important essays on design, by authors such as Otl Aicher, Peter Behrens, Max Bill, Gui Bonsiepe, Adrian Frutiger, Walter Gropius, Raymond Loewy, Adolf Loos, Thomas Maldonado, Dieter Rams, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Theodor W. Adorno, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Walter Benjamin, Vilém Flusser, Jürgen Habermas, Bruno Latour, Marshall McLuhan, Horst H. W. Rittel, Peter Sloterdijk, Martin Warnke, and others. As you might have noticed with this list, my biggest criticism is that among 40 authors there is only one women: Denise Scott Brown, credited in second place after Robert Venturi.
• Cennydd Bowles — Future Ethics My favorite book of the year!
• Alexandra Lange — The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids
• Bruno Latour — Cogitamus
• Ian Horrocks — Constructing the User Interface with Statecharts
• Steven Levy — Facebook: The Inside Story
• Brenda Laurel — Computers as Theatre
• Pop: Kultur und Kritik Heft 16 (Frühling 2020)

Basic Art Series by Taschen

I had already forgotten how great the Basic Art Series by Taschen is. The books are both written and designed with such great care and attention to detail, while being staggeringly affordable.

• Charlotte und Peter Fiell — Charles Rennie Mackintosh
• August Sarnitz — Josef Hoffmann
• Philip Jodidio — David Chipperfield
• Neil Jackson — Pierre Koenig
• Arnt Cobbers — Marcel Breuer
• Jean-Louis Cohen — Le Corbusier
• Barbara Lamprecht — Richard Neutra

Fiction

• Simon Beckett — The Chemistry of Death
• Simon Beckett — Written in Bone
• In bester Gesellschaft: Geschichten über den Rausch (Ausgewählt von Ursula Baumhauer) A collection of short stories, including ones by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph Roth, Roald Dahl, Amélie Nothomb and others.