Edwin Heath­cote, archi­tec­ture crit­ic of the Finan­cial Times, includ­ed City among his Best Books of 2012. This is what he said:

“The city is a big sub­ject but this is read­able, con­cise and extreme­ly enter­tain­ing. Smith spans the emer­gence of the first Mid­dle East­ern cities – places with no streets, so inhab­i­tants need­ed to walk on roofs and descend lad­ders to reach their homes – up to infor­mal set­tle­ments and high-tech hubs today. Well-researched, well-writ­ten and clear.”

Cana­di­an author Taras Grescoe has writ­ten an excel­lent piece in the Globe & Mail on City and Jeff Speck’s Walk­a­ble City. Writ­ing about City, he notes that “this crash course in urban civ­i­liza­tion is a reminder of the com­plex­i­ty, cos­mopoli­tanism and cre­ativ­i­ty that are engen­dered, and encour­aged, by liv­ing and work­ing cheek by jowl”. Read the arti­cle here.

Eric Liebe­trau, edi­tor of Kirkus Reviews, has also includ­ed City among his Best Non­fic­tion of 2012. The full list is here.

Post­script, 8 Decem­ber:

City was among the Notable Books of 2012 cho­sen by archi­tec­tur­al writer Mark Lam­ster for Design­ers & Books. I’m still blush­ing at his ful­some praise for the book:

“Read­ing it is like being seat­ed next to the most-informed, and most charm­ing guest at your dream din­ner par­ty, some­one with an end­less font of facts enlivened by quirky and often hilar­i­ous anec­dotes.”

Read the rest of what he had to say and see the oth­er excel­lent books he select­ed here. There was also a piece about City this week­end in the Los Ange­les Times by Car­olyn Kel­logg. She writes:

“Smith deft­ly inte­grates the nar­ra­tives of far-flung places across cen­turies. Dis­cussing sports with­in city bounds, he draws a con­nec­tion between the Roman Colos­se­um and skate­board­ers in Venice Beach. In this con­tin­u­um, he cre­ates an uber-city, a grand por­trait of what urban­i­ty is and might become.”