Books
April 24, 2008
Brooklyn Books It
There are people in Brooklyn who write books, according to an article in this week's Observer, a phenomenon that has resulted in a "literary community." The piece, which is actually thoughtful, includes a "somewhat arbitrary" "Brooklyn Literary 100" broken down by neighborhood. According to the list, the most literary neighborhood is the Slope, which boasts 20 writers/editors/assorted other literary types, followed by Fort Greene (19 bookish folks named, including Jhumpa Lahiri, Jennifer Egan and Colson Whitehead), and Boerum Hill, where 13 men/women of letters, including Jonathan Lethem, reside. We find it ironic that the most literary neighborhood in Brooklyn, by this account, is also the one that's seen the shuttering of two independent bookstores over the past year.
The Brooklyn Literary 100 [NY Observer]
Photo by mdash
April 18, 2008
Brooklyn Modern in a Book
In a sign of just how ridiculously busy we've been juggling the flea market launch and our blogging duties, we've somehow managed to neglect giving a shout-out to a fantastic new book by Diana Lind called Brooklyn Modern. (This omission is all the unforgivable given the fact that we have a frigging essay in the book, as does Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge.) Bottom line: Buy it. (Or at least go park yourself in a chair at Barnes & Noble and read it.) What we love about the book, which covers 18 homes in Broooklyn, is the the resourcefulness and creativity it reveals. In addition to the ground-up modern homes featured in the book, there are a number of older buildings revealed in their modern reinterpretations that we find particularly interesting. (There's also some incredible photography by Yoko Inoue.) Diana is also taking part in a multi-day Q&A on the Times' City Room Blog. Here's a short clip: "No, I don’t think that these pseudo-Modern buildings [going up in Williamsburg] will be looked at with the same admiration that we reserve for brownstones. Very few large condominiums built in New York in the past half-century have been revered; I don’t see much of the work in Brooklyn as any exception." Word.
January 21, 2008
Exploring Our Preoccupation With Housing
The Times has a review of an intriguing new book called “House Lust: America’s Obsession With Our Homes” by Daniel McGinn (Currency, $24.95) that tackles questions many of us can presumably relate to, like, “How did home renovations come to routinely turn families’ lives upside down?” and “Why do thousands of us now watch reality shows about home flipping or house hunting?” Although the book doesn’t specifically zoom in on Brooklyn, or even New York City, real estate, it does examine larger cultural trends that hit close to home, such as how in recent years (before the subprime fallout, anyway) Americans came to see home ownership as the most valuable investment they could make, leading many to fetishize their homes. For example, McGinn looks at “Fix-Up Fever” in Newtown, Mass., where he finds owners engaged in renovations for the purpose of “one-upping their neighbors.” The author’s conclusion? “Our homes may no longer be making us rich, but living through an era when we thought they might has resulted in a permanent shift in thinking — one that will leave many of us happily obsessed with houses for years to come.”
Who Needs a 401(k)? I’d Rather Have a Castle.
Book cover from Amazon.