Colin Marshall's Books on Cities

What else I've been reading in January 2026

Charles Dickens, Jacques Pépin's memoir, examinations of the American empire, and more

Jan 31 • Colin Marshall

8

2

Benjamin Schneider, The Unfinished Metropolis: Igniting the City-Building Revolution (2025)

What retarded American cities (in the literal sense), and how to set their development right

Jan 1 • Colin Marshall

10

3

November 2025

Sergio Chejfec, Mis dos mundos (2008)

A novella of the promise and disappointment of walking an unknown city

Nov 9, 2025 • Colin Marshall

6

September 2025

Fifth anniversary sale: one year for $30

A special deal for urban-minded readers everywhere

Sep 20, 2025 • Colin Marshall

5

2

Edmund White, The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris (2001)

What the late examiner of American gay life learned from his expat years

Sep 10, 2025 • Colin Marshall

13

2

July 2025

A. J. Liebling, Chicago: The Second City (1952)

When a New Yorker correspondent profiled the postwar "not-quite-metropolis," not every Chicagoan was pleased

Jul 21, 2025 • Colin Marshall

Ferdinand Addis, The Eternal City: A History of Rome (2018)

22 dramatic chapters in the life of a city, and a civilization, you may already be thinking about every day

Jul 6, 2025 • Colin Marshall

7

1

May 2025

David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries (2009)

The former Talking Head takes Sebaldian rides through New York, Istanbul, Copenhagen, Buenos Aires, and beyond

May 29, 2025 • Colin Marshall

8

2

Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World (2023)

Free parking causes almost everything wrong with American cities

May 14, 2025 • Colin Marshall

4

1

April 2025

Harold Brodkey, My Venice (1998)

The would-be "American Proust" reflects on an un-fantastical city

Apr 6, 2025 • Colin Marshall

2

February 2025

Jorge Almazán + Studiolab, Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City (2022)

Most cities would be better if they were more like Tokyo. So why aren't they?

Feb 27, 2025 • Colin Marshall

12

3

Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities) (1972)

A classic of imaginative literature doubles as a multifaceted consideration of urban existence

Feb 6, 2025 • Colin Marshall

1