Kaeru Male, 28, In a relationship. Utrecht, Netherlands

It took a little while to get into this, but once I did, I absolutely loved it. Although Brand writes about buildings, virtually every bit of his argument can be applied to other systems inhabited by people. It is a manifesto for adaptive design. It took me much longer to complete this book that I expected based on its page count. This is because of all the wonderful illustrations and photographs that beg to be studied in detail. One of my all time favourite books, basically. (It also helps that I while reading, I was in the midst of planning the renovation of part of my own home.) ... (continue)

I prefer his second book (which has less talk and more demonstrations of design), but the section herein where Tufte redesigns some very common displays is great – a strong demonstration of how far you can go with minimalism.

I was clearly not the audience of this book, but it was interesting to read the arguments Cooper uses to 'sell' interaction design to managers.

A quick read, unassumingly written. I really like the things Resnick has to say about the "centralized mindset" and how to combat it through education that employs playful computer simulations.

I can only hope as many designers as possible read this. It takes a little while to get going, but once the authors dive into their vision of eco-effective, cradle-to-cradle design, I could not put this down. This is one of those books that changes the way you look at the world. The best part is - the book's ideas cannot be dismissed as fanciful or utopian thanks to the many real-world examples of work by the authors. Genuinely inspiring.

Previously: Started reading this just now but the physical book alone is interesting already - a so-called durabook: http://www.durabooks.com/ ... (continue)

Not as good as the first collection (but then it's hard to beat the catastrophy that kicks off this series). This mostly feels like a couple of stories that set things up to build on later.

Many elements of Morrison's later work (The Invisibles, The Filth) are already present here, but in a less-refined way. The art, sadly, is a bit mediocre. Still, this is a delightfully weird and disturbing book.