City: A Story of Roman Planning and Construction

Unique, involving, granular, dazzling as ever. David Macaulay! Where have you been all my life?

This follows the very template-driven construction of an imaginary Roman city in the Po valley. Aka northeastern Italy, aka my ancestral hood. I couldn't believe how accurately and deeply he captured the landscape of that area - I was touched.

As with the other David Macaulay books I've now read (and I am loving EACH. AND EVERY. ONE OF THEM.), this one is a tour de force of architectural perspective and engineering drawings. This one is also very text-heavy, and quite involving. I read it and was moved to regularly look up certain details here and there (the hand-powered drill, for example), just to learn a bit more about how they worked. I learned LOADS in this. Did you know aqueducts were built so high to prevent people tampering with the water supply? Who knew! Damn barbarian hordes (aka Germans).

I presume it would be appropriate for older kids - tweens? - with an interest in engineering, the building of things. Cannot recommend this enough, however, for anyone and everyone who wants their mind and eyeballs expanded.