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Vote for "Unpacking My Library" in Amazon's best book covers of 2009 poll

You need look no further than our previous post to see that we're excited about Unpacking My Library, an intimate look into the literary collections of some of the world's most important architects. Turns out we're not the only ones. The Pentagram-designed project was recently nominated by Amazon.com's Omnivoracious blog as one of the best book covers of 2009. You'll find it under the "One of a Kind Covers" section.

But to truly give the book its due, we'll need your help. Amazon has set up a poll to let readers separate out the best of the best. Click here to view the voting page and be sure to select Unpacking My Library's unique landscape design when you do. You'll need to sign in with your Amazon customer account, and winners will be announced in late December.

To sweeten the deal just a bit, the first reader to send us a direct message on Facebook or Twitter after voting will receive a free copy of Unpacking My Library. All the more reason to vote early and often!

[UPDATE: We have a free book winner! Thanks for your support, and best of luck in our next giveaway.]

Hands on with "Unpacking My Library"

Urban Center Books has posted some wonderful videos related to Jo Steffens's Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books. A co-publication of the Municipal Art Society of New York and Yale University Press, the book and its accompanying exhibit delve into the personal libraries of twelve of the world’s leading architects, revealing the written works that inspired, challenged, and influenced these artists most.

As the hands-on video demonstrates, the book features an innovative mixture of photography and interviews, giving readers unparalleled insights into the lives, minds, and living spaces of these important figures. By no means have these architects limited their selections to works from other thinkers in their field. As this interview with Peter Eisenman proves, their influences are just as often literary, philosophical, or international as they are practical.

For more on Unpacking My Library, visit unpackingmylibrary.org and check out Urban Center Books's YouTube channel.

"Why Architecture Matters" on the Colbert Report

Paul Goldberger more than held his own while discussing Why Architecture Matters with Stephen Colbert last night. The critic kept a cool head and even lent his expert opinion to the host's proposed "half Parthenon, half White House" design for the Colbert estate. In reference to his book, Goldberger also discussed how buildings can make us dream, think, and even cry. Fortunately, during his interview, we mostly just laughed:

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Paul Goldberger at the Aspen Institute and on Colbert tonight

At 11:30 this evening, New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger will be in the hot seat on the Colbert Report discussing his new book, Why Architecture Matters. While we can't predict what line of questioning Colbert will follow (is there some secret left-wing architectural conspiracy we're not aware of?), Goldberger should be well prepared after his speaking engagement at the Aspen Institute last week.

During his wide-ranging discussion with Dana Gioia, director of the Institute’s Harman-Eisner Program in the Arts, Goldberger touched upon the functional and symbolic effects of architecture, as well as the booming building business in China. A full video of their discussion is available below, and be sure to tune into Comedy Central this evening at 11:30.

Robert A. M. Stern wins Onassis Medal

On October 26th, Robert A.M. Stern, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, was presented with the Municipal Arts Society’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal. The MAS’s highest honor, the medal is presented "to individuals who, by their work and deeds, have made an outstanding contribution to New York City" and is given in Mrs. Onassis’ name in recognition of "her tireless efforts to preserve and protect New York’s great architecture."

The MAS cited Dean Stern’s “early and ardent advocacy for the preservation of New York’s twentieth-century buildings,” and lauded him as “a champion of historic preservation.” Stern, the author of Architecture on the Edge of Postmodernism, joins past winners and fellow Yale University Press authors including Ada Louise Huxtable, Isamu Noguchi, and Paul Goldberger.

Being and Time and Scandal

In the wake of a heated commentary by Carlin Romano in The Chronicle Review, the academy has revived a familiar and unsettling debate over the merits of philosopher Martin Heidegger's work in light of the thinker's well-known connections to Nazism. The publication of Emmanuel Faye's book, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy, in a new English translation has provided the impetus for the uproar, provoking both those, like Romano, who agree with Faye's arguments and those that seek to separate Heidegger's politics from his philosophy. The New York Times recently framed the debate as "An Ethical Question", one that is unlikely to be soon answered.

Though Faye's book has certainly incited the greatest controversy of late, it might be considered part of a trio of new books from Yale University Press delving into the controversies surrounding three of the 20th century's most influential philosophers. New works on Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida round out the collection.

John Gerassi's 1989 biography of Sartre carried the subtitle "Hated Conscience of his Century." His most recent work, Talking with Sartre, may come closest to illuminating the thoughts and experiences that informed that inimitable conscience. In the early 1970s, Gerassi carried out a series of interviews with Sartre in preparation for the writing of his biography and, in the process, was granted unbelievable access to the writer. Their conversations range widely, covering literature, politics, and society, as well as Sartre's relationships, family, and his affairs. In this edited volume, Gerassi's probing questions and easy familiarity with his subject create an intimate portrait of this influential intellectual figure.

As David Mikics writes in his introduction to Who Was Jacques Derrida?, "During his lifetime, Derrida elicited both intense celebration and intense scorn." As a key of proponent of deconstruction, Derrida is known for his highly difficult style of writing, which occasionally seeks to undermine the act of writing itself, illustrating "the unreliability inherent in meaning," as Mikics explains it. Derrida attracted a bevy of critics during his lifetime, and in the video below, taken from a 2002 documentary, he addresses the "fear" he occasionally felt during the writing process.

What would Victor Hugo do?

The following guest post was written by Marva Barnett, author of Victor Hugo on Things That Matter:

What is just and what is legal are all too often not the same thing. Nina Totenberg’s recounting of the current Supreme Court case about prosecutorial immunity illuminates what Victor Hugo called “the quarrel between rights and law.” Not until that quarrel is resolved, he wrote in the preface to a collection of his socially-conscious speeches, will society reach true civilization.

In this case, attorneys for the Council Bluffs, Iowa, prosecutors argue explicitly, bluntly, that Americans have no constitutional right not to be framed for a crime they didn’t commit. Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee were imprisoned in 1977 for a murder they had no hand in. Tenaciously stating his innocence, Mr. Harrington was finally released in 2003 after a case review in which eyewitnesses recanted their testimony. Under Iowa law, neither man has legal recourse to receive compensation for the 25 years lost because of fabricated evidence. Their suit against the Council Bluffs police and prosecutor for violating of constitutional rights has reached the Supreme Court. An objective case summary shows that the police and prosecutor ignored evidence pointing to another, well-connected suspect and accepted testimony against Mr. Harrington from a man with a criminal record who erred in his story about the murder location and weapon involved.

Still, attorneys for the prosecutors, while hypothetically admitting that Mr. Harrington might have been framed, contend that such framing is legal, though perhaps not just. Victor Hugo must be raging in his Paris Pantheon tomb! Were he able to put pen to paper, he would this morning be dashing off a public letter. Justice is divine, he would write, far above the laws that people create. When everyone can see where justice lies in a cause, should we not choose what is just over what is legal? Why are laws not written to promote justice? Human rights come from God, and laws cannot morally overcome them. Jean Valjean, after 19 years at hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread, learned this from a man of God. The author of Les Misérables would be making the case for Mr. Harrington, human rights, and justice.

Parenting a gender-variant child

The most recent issue of TimeOut Kids features a series of articles on children and sexuality, highlighting the many dilemmas that parents face when educating their children about the realities of sex and gender. Ken Corbett, author of Boyhoods: Rethinking Masculinities, is quoted extensively in a piece on the particularly thorny problem of parenting a gender variant child. Though the repressive desire to force Johnny into playing quarterback when he'd really rather be doing needlepoint has been tempered over the years, Corbett notes that the current model of overencouraging, "free-to-be-you-and-me" parenting can be just as damaging:

“We’re stuck between advocacy and reactive pathologizing,” he says. “We want to be responsive and encouraging, but at the same time, it’s not right—ethically or responsibly—to predict a child’s future. We don’t have an archive of what happens to gender-variant kids. A boy who displays feminine traits as a child may grow up to be transgender, he may be a gay man, he may be a straight man who is a good father, he may become an artist with a sensitive temperament.”

There seems to be no magic model for parenting, regardless of the child's gender identity, but Corbett notes that communication may be the most important element of any healthy relationship. "If your son says he wants to be a girl, Corbett adds, ask him why. 'The answer may not be what you expect.'”

A discussion about the piece continues on the New York Times's Motherlode blog.