The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BESTSELLER '[A] diverse and enlightening book . . . The 99% Invisible City is altogether fresh and imaginative when it comes to thinking about urban spaces.' The New York Times Book Review 'Here is a field guide, a boon, a bible, for the urban curious. Your city's secret anatomy laid bare a hundred things you look at but don't see, see but don't know. Each entry is a compact, surprising story, a thought piece, an invitation to marvel. Together, they are almost transformative. To know why things are as they are adds a satisfying richness to daily existence. This book is terrific, just terrific.' Mary Roach, New York Times bestselling author of Stiff, Grunt, and Gulp 'The 99% Invisible City brings into view the fascinating but often unnoticed worlds we walk and drive through every day, and to read it is to feel newly alive and aware of your place in the world. This book made me laugh, and it made me cry, and it reminded me to always read the plaque.' John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All The Way Down A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean' Or stopped to consider why you don't see metal fire escapes on new buildings' Or pondered the story behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships' 99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design.