Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction | One of Time Magazines’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 | Longlisted for the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards “An entertaining quest to trace the origins and implications of the names of the roads on which we reside.” –Sarah Vowell, The New York Times Book Review When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it … 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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I grew up on a street named after a city mover and shaker from the late 1800’s and it was a great accomplishment for me to learn to spell it. Looking back at the old neighborhood addresses only two streets were named and the rest were numbers. Living on one of the two named streets gave you your place above all of the rest. It never occurred to me as a child that the rest of the world didn’t have any kind of address at all. Now that I was enjoyed this wonderfully written book, I will never see addresses the same way.
Through history, politics, race and economics, the reader is taken on a tour of the world and of history and I couldn’t put it down. This is one of those special books that I want to share with everyone. Some will be getting a copy as a birthday gift and others for a holiday. There is something for everybody within its pages.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin’s and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.
I had hoped The Address Book would change the way I think about an oft-overlooked, seemingly banal bit of everyday life. I had no idea it would so change the way I think about life itself.
The Address Book is a deeply-researched dive into the surprising histories and meanings that lie behind the seemingly mundane way we name our streets and number our houses and buildings. Deidre Mask provides powerful insight into the ways these addresses not only structure our lives but function as a tool to classify and track people, reflecting the enduring divides of class, race, and power. A must read for urbanists and all those interested in cities and modern economic and social life.
Deirdre Mask’s book was just up my Strasse, alley, avenue and boulevard. A classic history of nomenclature – loaded, complex and absorbing.
The story of our streets is the history of our cities. Deirdre Mask reveals how the tales secreted within a street name can be as mesmerizing and mystifying as the city itself ― and the people who call that place home.
Adam Gopnik observes that ‘cities are their streets. Streets are not a city’s veins but its neurology, its accumulated intelligence.’ In this light, street addresses map not just a city’s geography, but its very thoughts, and even its way of thinking. It is no accident that, in suburban sprawl, most people live on streets that go nowhere, or on parking lots with no proper street addresses at all. In this lively and eye-opening book, Deidre Mask unearths the many layers of meaning hiding just below the surface of the ways we place ourselves and others in our communities.
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.