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Thursday, January 07, 2010

52 Books in 52 Weeks: Book 1

After managing to read 60 books in 2009, for 2010, I have decided to take the time to document the books I read.

To kick off the year, I read The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton. It is a book that delves into why we respond to certain types of architecture and design and how the spaces we live in impact our lives. 

Here are excerpts of some of my favorite passages:
"It seems reasonable to suppose that people will possess some of the qualities of the buildings they are drawn to."
"Our working routines may be frantic and compromised, dense with meetings, insincere handshakes, small-talk and bureacracy. We may say things we don't believe in to win over colleagues and feel ourselves becoming envious and excited in relation to goals we don't essentially care for. But, finally, on our own... we can slowly resume contact with a more authentic self, who was there waiting in the wings for us to end our performance."
"We might even come to better understand God through beauty, fot it was He who had created everything beautiful in the world... In contact with attractive buildings, we could imitate some of the refinement, intelligence, kindness and harmony of their maker."
 "They were falling in love with the natural in their art precisely because they were losing tough with the natural in their own lives."
"Beauty lies between the extremities of order and complexity."

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