A collection of my reading lists and recommend books, articles, and sources across design, play, and living well. I only include books I’ve read and found interesting / worth reading. Though I’ve grouped them very roughly, I find the commonality these all share is that they have informed my work and writing on PLAY. Below that is my 2020 reading list, which will be updated throughout the year.
Each book will eventually be paired with a post compiling selected passages from each.
Have a book you’d recommend? Let me know!
PLAY, GAMES, AND MORE
Deep Play by Diane Ackerman (amazon)
“Deep play” is that more intensified form of play that puts us in a rapturous mood and awakens the most creative, sentient, and joyful aspects of our inner selves–from the artistic to the spiritual and the athletic.
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse (amazon)
Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end. Recommend reading in pair with The Well Played Game by DeKoven.
The Well Played Game by Bernie DeKoven (amazon)
The Well-Played Game helped create a vision that ultimately transformed physical education. Recommend reading in pair with Finite and Infinite Games.
Love Where You Live by Peter Kageyama (also in design)
The Play Ethic by Pat Kane (amazon)
A Manifesto for a Different Way of Living
Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work by Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal (amazon)
Exploring the alter-states economy across psychology, neurobiology, technology, and pharmacology-and how humans use these states to achieve and expand.
ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN, URBAN PLANNING & SOCIAL JUSTICE
The Help Yourself City by Gordon Douglas (amazon)
Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbansim
Mobility Justice by Mimi Sheller
Tactical Urbanism
Hostile Architecture
Ludic Architecture
INCLUSION & DIVERSITY
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (amazon)
” We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it “
White Fragility by DiAngelo and Dyson (amazon)
The phenomenon of white fragility “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to ‘bad people’
How To Be An Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi (amazon)
Racial inequity is a problem of bad policy, not bad people. Being an anti-racist requires persistent self awareness, constant self criticism, and regular self-examination.
So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo (amazon)
How to have honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life
2020 Reading List
ON MY NIGHTSTAND RIGHT NOW
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LONG TERM WISH LIST
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