Twenty Minutes in Manhattan Book

In Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, Michael Sorkin uses his rambling walk from home to work as a template for an equally rambling and varied book filled with thought provoking asides about living in NYC, and about the nature of cities and living spaces in general. It's all over the place, which can make it somewhat difficult to get into, but it is worth going along with the author for the ride, as it's a really enjoyable and wide ranging book once you get into it.

It's certainly not perfect, though. At times I wondered who he was actually writing the book for, since the language is often needlessly academic, and some sentences are frankly impenetrable. A random but unfortunately typical sentence opening: "The city's variegated scale is part of its genius loci..." My other main complaint is that the book was originally published in the UK in 2009, and for some reason it wasn't revised or updated for its first US publication, leaving some passages are already out of date. Given its inherently visual nature, it would make a fabulous enhanced e-book, and would be markedly more useful with copious photos, diagrams, and video.

This book is something unique, particularly for anyone who has spent some time in NYC. It is unfortunate that it probably will not reach the wide audience it should because of the at times off-putting writing style; if you're willing to slog through some passages that even his dissertation committee would grimace at, it will be worth your while.