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Seattleness: A Cultural Atlas
This visually rich cultural atlas of Seattle explores the mercurial nature of place through the lens of one of the fastest growing cities in America. Through both experiential and data-driven cartography, Seattleness lends itself to longtime residents, newcomers to the city, and those curious about the moody borough that has brought us airplanes, grunge, gourmet coffee, and e-commerce.
In the style of Infinite City and Portlandness, this illustrated book examines an expansive range of topics from UFO sightings to pinball legacies, gray skies to frontier psychology, strong women and strong coffee. Compelling infographic visuals emerge from deep dives into data, unraveling over 50 real and strange narratives about the green metropolis perched at the edge of the Salish Sea.
In the style of Infinite City and Portlandness, this illustrated book examines an expansive range of topics from UFO sightings to pinball legacies, gray skies to frontier psychology, strong women and strong coffee. Compelling infographic visuals emerge from deep dives into data, unraveling over 50 real and strange narratives about the green metropolis perched at the edge of the Salish Sea.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published October 23, 2018
7 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
December 16, 2019
(3.5) Aight. Makes me want to do a little more research (and read Seattle books, watch old Seattle movies, TV)
It’s a bunch of infographics that tend to favor visual pleasure over data clarity. What are the numbers on the bridges page? Cars per day? It’s left unstated. There are often diagrams with lines crossing one another in a beautiful network, but following a particular line can be impossible (novels to topic, native state of birth proportion of Seattle population over time). The one on buoy data makes zero sense.
All that said, it takes many cool looks at Seattle, past, present, and trends over time. It would be really cool if they released a new edition every decade!
Also, just noticed the authors are three PNW women, cool! :)
It’s a bunch of infographics that tend to favor visual pleasure over data clarity. What are the numbers on the bridges page? Cars per day? It’s left unstated. There are often diagrams with lines crossing one another in a beautiful network, but following a particular line can be impossible (novels to topic, native state of birth proportion of Seattle population over time). The one on buoy data makes zero sense.
All that said, it takes many cool looks at Seattle, past, present, and trends over time. It would be really cool if they released a new edition every decade!
Also, just noticed the authors are three PNW women, cool! :)
October 24, 2018
Loved this book! I received an advance copy from NetGalley, and enjoyed it so much that I ordered two additional copies to give to friends for Christmas!
If you live in Seattle, or have any interest in visiting there, this book is for you. Chock full of interesting infographics about the city. Crazy charts about the rain, the mountains, the terrain, the streets, the explosion of construction, and on and on.
I guarantee that you will return to it over and over, discovering something new every time you pick it up!
If you live in Seattle, or have any interest in visiting there, this book is for you. Chock full of interesting infographics about the city. Crazy charts about the rain, the mountains, the terrain, the streets, the explosion of construction, and on and on.
I guarantee that you will return to it over and over, discovering something new every time you pick it up!
January 3, 2019
I recommend this book for anyone living in or visiting Seattle. This is not a tourist guide (although you can use part of it for that), but interesting information about Seattle.
May 26, 2019
This book is everything! I thought I couldn’t possibly love this city any more than I already do. But after reading this all I want to do is go back (like I haven’t just been there 2 weeks ago - feels like it’s been 2 years). If you love Seattle - read it, you’ll love it more. If you haven’t been to Seattle - read it, you’ll want to go! I wanted this book to never end, that’s why I’ve been reading it for 2 months. Beautiful illustrations, maps, charts, EVERYTHING.
December 11, 2018
What a fine treat this book is! Beautiful, informative, positive; I think Greg Scruggs from the Seattle Stranger said it best: Seattleness Should Be the Required Handbook for Everyone Who Lives Here.
Indeed, this is a great addition to your shelf of Seattle books. Because it is a series of clever snapshots and visualized data about a myriad of Seattle topics--any of which can be explored further by digging into the awesome bibliography/sources at the back of the book.--Seattleness is a great "starter book" if you want to learn a little bit about a lot of things related to the city and region.
It's also a great addition if you collect books on mapping and/or data visualization, or about cultural atlases, like Rebecca Solnit's books on San Francisco and New Orleans (that said, I find Seattleness more interesting, inventive, and with far less cant than Solnit's work).
Indeed, this is a great addition to your shelf of Seattle books. Because it is a series of clever snapshots and visualized data about a myriad of Seattle topics--any of which can be explored further by digging into the awesome bibliography/sources at the back of the book.--Seattleness is a great "starter book" if you want to learn a little bit about a lot of things related to the city and region.
It's also a great addition if you collect books on mapping and/or data visualization, or about cultural atlases, like Rebecca Solnit's books on San Francisco and New Orleans (that said, I find Seattleness more interesting, inventive, and with far less cant than Solnit's work).
November 2, 2021
This book is so fun! I got it to flip through over time and ended up reading it at lunch most days and just wanted to keep going. I learned a lot of things about Seattle history and geography, and cool new (to me) places to explore. Only thing keeping it from 5 stars is that some graphics sacrifice interpretability for artistic layout - sometimes it doesn't affect readability, but other times it was hard to parse what the graphics were showing.
September 24, 2019
Amazing collections of data visualization. Fascinating to read even though you may or may not be interested in Seattle. It covers a wide array of aspects of Seattle, including but not limited to weather, sky color, history, mountains, fire lookout, etc. To give an example, it even includes a gum flavors analysis of the gum wall. It would be so nice to have such a book for every city.
December 26, 2021
A clever book of infographics about Seattle. Similar in approach to 'Upper Left Cities' that used infographics to compare aspects of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. This book, though, focuses just on Seattle and has more detail, although there is one section of comparison with some other cities.
November 17, 2018
Nifty maps and visualizations of Seattle’s geography and culture - from steepness of hills to density of coffee shops to locations of Sasquatch sightings. A few of the topics were a stretch to fit into infographics, but overall this was a fun book to page through.
December 31, 2018
This book has a niche market: data geeks who love Seattle. The data visualizations are creative, and mesmerizing. I found myself reading out loud to my family at dinner, and my teen spent more time than usual listening to me describe bits of ephemera I had gleaned after dinner was over.
August 11, 2021
What a fun book. I really enjoyed looking at a few pages per day over my Cheerios... enough text to make things interesting and present background, but the star of this book is the graphical data.
Just fun and interesting, which is plenty!
Just fun and interesting, which is plenty!
March 12, 2019
A very cool book. Would love for them to make more cities.
March 1, 2020
Odds and ends of random Seattle facts.
March 1, 2020
Full of infographics for the sake of infographics. The art is there but the communication isn’t.
February 19, 2021
Absolute gem of a find. I love infographics, and this book is full of them.
May 5, 2021
I love a good info graphics and these are all about my hometown which makes them extra great. Perfect palette cleanser of a book.
March 6, 2020
Visually pleasant maps and graphs, complimenting the words, tell a collection of enticing trivia about Seattle - its civic culture, geography, and weather. Seattle has more to offer than what's been covered in the book. Nonetheless, the book has done an awesome job of transforming otherwise dry facts into engaging stories.
November 26, 2022
A nice bookshelf type of read about Seattle. The book has a lot of interesting visuals and statistics, although the sheer variety means an average reader would only care about max 50% of the content. Overall, a nice quick read that both details the history of Seattle and gives you a different take on the city.
October 8, 2018
An infographic guide book to the real and imagined infrastructure of Seattle. A riveting in depth exploration and history for hard core locals and visitors alike.
October 24, 2018
If you're in search of a standard travel book, this isn't it. We do get a little of everything Seattle here though - from all sorts of history to demographics and culture (past and present) to Sasquatch sightings and much more. This was a very interesting read and I loved learning a bit more about one of my favorite cities.
Thanks to authors Tera Hatfield, Jenny Kempson, Natalie Ross, Sasquatch Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.
Thanks to authors Tera Hatfield, Jenny Kempson, Natalie Ross, Sasquatch Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.
December 4, 2018
Very interesting and different. I guess I didn't expect for it to be so eclectic in the information. UFO/Sasquatch sightings. Info on the different boats/ships, bridges, buildings, population, vegetation, trees, movies filmed and where.... all the info is in there and so much more.
My daughter recently moved to Seattle from California for college which is what piqued my interest in finding out more about Seattle and my interest in the book. I can't wait to share some of it with her when she gets home for Christmas Break. I think she will find it to be a fascinating book. I'm reviewing a digital copy and have a feeling she might want to get her hands on a physical copy.
Enjoy!
My daughter recently moved to Seattle from California for college which is what piqued my interest in finding out more about Seattle and my interest in the book. I can't wait to share some of it with her when she gets home for Christmas Break. I think she will find it to be a fascinating book. I'm reviewing a digital copy and have a feeling she might want to get her hands on a physical copy.
Enjoy!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews