Want to know what books Jane Kamensky recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Jane Kamensky's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
Alex Krieger, David Cobb, Norman B. Leventhal, Amy Turner | 4.33
An informative--and beautiful--exploration of the life and history of a city through its maps.
To the attentive user even the simplest map can reveal not only where things are but how people perceive and imagine the spaces they occupy. Mapping Boston is an exemplar of such creative attentiveness--bringing the history of one of America's oldest and most beautiful cities alive through the maps that have depicted it over the centuries.The book includes both historical maps of the city and maps showing the gradual emergence of the New England region from the imaginations... more An informative--and beautiful--exploration of the life and history of a city through its maps.
To the attentive user even the simplest map can reveal not only where things are but how people perceive and imagine the spaces they occupy. Mapping Boston is an exemplar of such creative attentiveness--bringing the history of one of America's oldest and most beautiful cities alive through the maps that have depicted it over the centuries.The book includes both historical maps of the city and maps showing the gradual emergence of the New England region from the imaginations of explorers to a form that we would recognize today. Each map is accompanied by a full description and by a short essay offering an insight into its context. The topics of these essays by Anne Mackin include people both familiar and unknown, landmarks, and events that were significant in shaping the landscape or life of the city. A highlight of the book is a series of new maps detailing Boston's growth.
The book also contains seven essays that explore the intertwining of maps and history. Urban historian Sam Bass Warner, Jr., starts with a capsule history of Boston. Barbara McCorkle, David Bosse, and David Cobb discuss the making and trading of maps from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Historian Nancy S. Seasholes reviews the city's remarkable topographic history as reflected in maps, and planner Alex Krieger explores the relation between maps and the physical reality of the city as experienced by residents and visitors. In an epilogue, novelist James Carroll ponders the place of Boston in contemporary culture and the interior maps we carry of a city. less 
Jane KamenskyIt’s a great book about the assembling of the physical city—a group of essays and catalogue entries edited by an urban planner from the Harvard School of Design and an eminent map curator. (Source)
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2
Winner of 3 different awards, this is a story of the busing crisis in Boston. more Winner of 3 different awards, this is a story of the busing crisis in Boston. less Jane KamenskyThrough intensive interviewing, J. Anthony Lukas tells the story of America in the twentieth century, especially late twentieth-century Boston, through three families. (Source)
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3
James Oliver Horton, Lois E. Horton | 3.08
Creates a profile of the Black Bostonians by examining the lifestyles, family structure, culture, community, religion, and marriage patterns. more Creates a profile of the Black Bostonians by examining the lifestyles, family structure, culture, community, religion, and marriage patterns. less Jane KamenskyI admire how much blood they’re able to squeeze from really stony documents. They give us a sense of the sounds, sights and textures of daily life for some of the poorest people in the city, from records that, if you looked at them, would seem to tell you nothing. (Source)
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5
Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. "A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint...Ms. Lahiri expertly captures the out-of-context lives of immigrants, expatriates, and first-generation Americans" (Wall Street Journal). In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Honored as "Debut of the Year" by the New Yorker and... more Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerringly charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. "A writer of uncommon sensitivity and restraint...Ms. Lahiri expertly captures the out-of-context lives of immigrants, expatriates, and first-generation Americans" (Wall Street Journal). In stories that travel from India to America and back again, Lahiri speaks with universal eloquence to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner. Honored as "Debut of the Year" by the New Yorker and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award, Interpreter of Maladies introduces a young writer of astonishing maturity and insight who "breathes unpredictable life into the page" (New York Times).
~from back cover less 
Leah LizarondoGiven free time to do anything I would read fiction. This book took me out of a long dry spell because it is a collection of short stories that I could read while in the bath. Each story is written so beautifully, I still remember putting the book down from time to time, just to close my eyes and absorb what I just read. (Source)
Jane KamenskyLahirihas a great knack for showing both the closeness and the distance of peoples and cities. They seem so close together at the same time, they’re incredibly far apart. (Source)
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