How The Street Where You Live Came To Be
©Emily Kallas
This month's reading started out very strongly. Someway, somehow, I read two great books in less than four days! It usually takes me an average of a week - per book. Longer with non-fiction. However, I could not put this book down, and I am still thinking about it - almost a month later.
Street addresses, for many of us, are a part of our everyday lives. Things that we don't even really think about. And yet, their history is fascinating! How they are named, why they are named, how they are used, what they represent.
With great journalistic approach, Deirdre Mask travels the roads of the world, discovering and sharing with the reader, different ways that maps of all kinds shape and impact our world. From the slums of Kolkata, by way of ancient Rome, through Chicago as we know it today and many other places around the world, after reading this book, you won’t think about where you live, or your commute to work the same way ever again!
(↑Sneak Peak at my future shelf talker for the book↑)
There is a segment of the book where Mask talks about the vici of Ancient Rome and how each one had to have certain municipalities within - in order to maintain vitality. When I was reading this, a clear image of the buildings and neighborhoods came to mind. And with that clear image, a distinct memory of a computer game that I played when I was a kid popped to mind as well.
Way back in 1998, when my sister and I shared a desktop computer, one of the games that we spend many hours playing was Caesar III. It was a city planning simulation game set in you guessed it, Ancient Rome, or well, Italy as a whole rather. I actually played a few games like this as a kid.
It was fun realizing that a game from my childhood would come back, and help my understanding of things as an adult. Edutainment at its best!
(not my photo. found via basic google image search)
This month's reading started out very strongly. Someway, somehow, I read two great books in less than four days! It usually takes me an average of a week - per book. Longer with non-fiction. However, I could not put this book down, and I am still thinking about it - almost a month later.
Street addresses, for many of us, are a part of our everyday lives. Things that we don't even really think about. And yet, their history is fascinating! How they are named, why they are named, how they are used, what they represent.
Way back in 1998, when my sister and I shared a desktop computer, one of the games that we spend many hours playing was Caesar III. It was a city planning simulation game set in you guessed it, Ancient Rome, or well, Italy as a whole rather. I actually played a few games like this as a kid.
It was fun realizing that a game from my childhood would come back, and help my understanding of things as an adult. Edutainment at its best!
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