The Address Book
What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power
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Average rating4
An extraordinary debut in the tradition of classic works from authors such as Mark Kurlansky, Mary Roach, and Rose George. An exuberant and insightful work of popular history of how streets got their names, houses their numbers, and what it reveals about class, race, power, and identity. When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class. In this wide-ranging and remarkable book, Deirdre Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr., the wayfinding means of ancient Romans, and how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany. The flipside of having an address is not having one, and we also see what that means for millions of people today, including those who live in the slums of Kolkata and on the streets of London. Filled with fascinating people and histories, The Address Book illuminates the complex and sometimes hidden stories behind street names and their power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn’t—and why.
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Fascinating and absorbing, and recommended to readers with a passing interest in urban planning or those who enjoy podcasts on “did ya know” topics. This would make a great book club pick or gift for the hard-to-buy-for person in your life.
Compelling Yet Not Complete. Mask tells some excellent stories about various issues early in the development of various features and issues with an address, and does so in a way that is very easy to read. That noted, at times (such as during the discussion of how house numbers came to be) she outright admits that several things “seemingly happened at once” and that she went with the story she prefers herself - as opposed to what actually happened first, presumably. It was these little tidbits here and there that were just enough to warrant removing a star - still a compelling and interesting book, but not as factually accurate as it arguably could have been. Still good enough for a general overview of the subject, but I'm not sure I'd want to go up against a Postmaster General in address trivia based on just reading this book. Still, as noted, a very easy and very informative read and thus very much recommended.
Interesting and well-written nonfiction about a topic that most of us take for granted. The author spans thousands of years of history and travels around the world to explore how, when and why we started to use addresses, how street names change over time, what they say about our priorities and values, and how challenging life can be without one. Bonus points for featuring the street grid designed by William Penn in Philadelphia (the home of my heart) and the problem of streets named after MLK Jr, starting in St. Louis (my current hometown).
Good blend of interesting stories and interviews, with facts and figures. I could have lived without the mention of Donald Trump and another example of his lying (about the number of floors in Trump Tower of course), but at least the author points out that his idea of literally buying a better address was not at all original.
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