Karen McCartney: Iconic Australian Houses: Three Decades of Domestic Architecture
Lovely book of modernist Australian architecture from 1950 to 1974. A coffee-table book but a wonderful one. Full notes here. (*****)
JG Ballard: Kingdom Come
Ballard running on only one or two engines, but still chock full of wonderful ideas and observations, and with a few lines that will resonate forever. Curiously full of holes (no CCTV on the original crime?) but as a depiction of an England rotten to the core, timely and useful. (****)
Peter Jones: Ove Arup: Masterbuilder of the Twentieth Century
Slightly haphazard biography of one of the great designers and leaders of the 20thC. The parts on building, design, organisation, context and practice are fascinating, and the portrait of Ove Arup himself is detailed and heartfelt. Some personal aspects are a little uneven and the writing is curiously disjointed in structure but it's a thoroughly good read overall, on one of the great thinkers and practitioners in architecture and engineering. (****)
Agustin Pérez Rubio: SANAA Houses: Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa
Excellent book on the Japanese architecture firm. Full review here. (*****)
Nevil Shute: On the Beach
Absolutely fantastic read, if as thoroughly downbeat as a story about the end of the human race ought to be. Set in an Melbourne post-armageddon, as the last few people on earth live out their last months, it's a fascinating portrait of its time (1957) and Australia. (*****)
Elizabeth Farrelly: Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness
Architecture, urbanism, desire, happiness, beauty, obesity, greed, depression etc. A potent mix. A bit uneven, and journalistic in essence (which jars in this form) but good on Australia's architecture in particular, and with a beguiling speculative last chapter. (****)
Robert Hughes: Things I Didn't Know: A Memoir
Hughes is amongst the finest cultural critics and historians, and here focused on the first part of his own history and culture. So we get rich portraits of Australia, WW I and Vietnam, Italy, London, the 60s, art, food, sex, model aeroplanes &c as well as Mr. Hughes. Supreme writing applied to fascinating subject matter. (*****)
W.G. Sebald: The Rings of Saturn
Jonathan Raban said "The finest book of long-distance mental travel that I've ever read" and I'm inclined to agree. A quietly majestic book, with peerless clear, evocative prose, drawn from immensely erudite research, and interspersed with simple ghostly photography. (*****)
Bruce Sterling: Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets)
A re-read, due to recent projects. Sterling, like the geeks he so admires, underestimates the richness of sensory information in the physical, when over-emphasising the new importance of the model, the map. The map has outgrown the territory only if you simply look at it. And yet there is no better guide to the map - of modeling, fabrication, the geoweb and arphids, and what this all means. Unlike most books in this field, it's as engagingly written as you'd expect and ultimately so thought-provoking and inspiring that you can forgive the oversight - which tends to come with, er, the territory. (*****)
Lebbeus Woods: War and Architecture (Pamphlet Architecture)
Incredible radical response to the ruined Sarajevo. Must be read to comprehend the brilliance and bravery of his suggestions and visions, but essentially Woods suggests building in and around the 'scabs' and 'scars' of the shattered city, not simply in order to preserve or record history, but to also mitigate against further violence by creating a new heterarchical form of urban organisation. "Architecture must learn to transform the violence, even as violence knows how to transform the architecture." (*****)
David Peace: Tokyo Year Zero
Still dealing with this book. Reading this snapshot of a Tokyo in ruins, physically and psychologically, in 1947, after his shattering book on Brian Clough, feels like an odd change of gears initially. Yet the writing style - a kind of metronomic Ellroy-level intensity - pervades both, as does the startling ability to capture a sense of place and time. This is the more ambitious work, and may end up being one of the great modern evocations of Tokyo. (*****)
Peter Robb: Midnight in Sicily
Perhaps the best book I've read in recent years, by Australian author Robb (see also 'A Death In Brazil') painting a portrait of southern Italy, filtered through history, food, literature, painting, architecture and principally the long-running legal cases against the Mafia. Absolutely extraordinary. (*****)
Geoff Dyer: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence
Genius. Only intermittently about Lawrence, and as much as Dyer's knees, childish Italians, Mexico, terrible Greeks, writing about place, horrible food, annoying English people, depression, travelling, and how dull Oxford is. One of the funniest books I've read, occasionally devastatingly sad, and also, accidentally/cleverly, brilliant on DH Lawrence. (*****)
Kerry William Purcell: Josef Muller-Brockmann
Wonderfully detailed, carefully illustrated, and generally massive tome on the 20th century's greatest graphic designer. Essential. (*****)
Juhani Pallasmaa: The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses
One of those rare books that changes the way you think about everything. Already a huge influence, and one of the greatest books on architecture and urbanism that I've ever read. (*****)
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki: In Praise of Shadows
A wonderful essay, from the early 20th century, on Japanese aesthetics. A perfect companion to Juhani Pallasmaa, but entirely pleasurable and enlightening on its own. (*****)
Christopher Woodward: In Ruins
Unique book on the perception and understanding of ruins in western culture - specifically art history - by architectural historian Woodward. A bit too classically orientated - nothing on ruins in film, for instance - but some great stories and insights. (****)
Peter Carey: Wrong about Japan
Light (for Carey) but hugely enjoyable and interesting. Learnt few specifics - other than some interesting local insight on manga and anime - but gained a strong overall impression of Japan through Carey's eyes. (****)
Richard Williams: The Perfect 10
Absolutely fantastic book on the great players in the most interesting, creative and challenging position in a football team. Puskas, Pele, Rivera, Mazzola, Netzer, Platini, Francescoli, Maradona, Baggio, Bergkamp, Zidane, all lovingly described by Williams. (*****)
Surveillance: Jonathan Raban
I prefer Rabans's non-fiction - not that it's entirely 'non' - to his fiction, but he's such a good writer it's always entertaining and interesting. Ending a bit, well, open-ended - which is also interesting - but great, important themes here. (****)
Majorly impressed with the new Radio Player, looks great and a lot easier to use - a lot of good work, thanks and well done.
So much stuff to listen to as well, thank god for Blogmatrix Sparks I can listen to a huge range of shows whilst out and about too.
Do you think eventually you will increase the length of time shows are archived for?
Posted by: juniorbonner | January 26, 2005 at 05:44 PM
Looks very good. The only thing I'd say is that with all this new content, it would be helpful if there was an easy an obvious way for people (like bloggers) to be able to link to specific programmes on the radio player, without having to tell people to 'go to the X website and click on X then X then X'.
Frankie
Posted by: Frankie Roberto | January 28, 2005 at 12:30 PM
I really like the new service but where has the 'What's on now and next' part gone to? That was a very handy feature but it seems to have been pulled from the player, leaving just the link to Listen Live.
Posted by: London Dan | February 07, 2005 at 10:54 PM
Hi all - thanks for the comments. Frankie, we're working on ways to help people link to specific shows. The 'social life of a broadcast' stuff we're working on - now seen on the Radio 3 site - enables people to link direct to specific instances of shows. We'll be working on getting the appropriate direct links to the audio on those pages. This should help the bloggers example you suggest - something we're very interesting in addressing.
As to the 'now and next', we're working on pulling that back in. We had an issue with the system which supplies that information last week. We're on it.
As to the length of time shows are archived for, that's complex. Some shows we are/will be able to extend beyond a week; others not. Again, we're working on new policies in this area. Watch that space.
Posted by: Dan | February 10, 2005 at 09:45 AM
What I can see of it looks great. What I can see of it, that is, before it crashes Firefox, every single time I try to launch it. I've been having issues with Real Player anyway, but presumably as the BBC Player is a standalone app, that ought to have no bearing on the matter?
Posted by: Reya | April 05, 2005 at 09:15 PM
Hi Reya (tried to email you but the address didn't work?)
Not sure why this should be ... We've thoroughly tested in Firefox, and it should work fine - what system are you using? And what problems are you having with RealPlayer? As we do use the Real plugin (and Windows Media for some services) then there is a dependency there ...
If you can give me a little more info, I can see if we can help you out.
Best,
Dan.
Posted by: Dan | April 07, 2005 at 10:46 PM
Just wanted to say that I love the new radio player, but it is still having the same problems with Firefox that the old one had:
I can listen to to the first thing that is clicked on directly from a web page (be it a live broadcast or an archived BBC World news bulletin). However, trying to go on from there to another programme does not seem to work: the player ap status changes to Connecting, the previous audio stream ends and nothing happens thereafter. Switching to Win Media player seems to help. Reloading, etc. Does not. If you quit Firefox and restart it seems to help. Works perfectly in IE.
Using Firefox 1.03, Realplayer 10.5 under Win XP SP2.
Please email if you'd like more info.
Posted by: Iggy | April 29, 2005 at 08:00 PM
Any updates on the 'now and next' information?
I'm living off the radio player at the moment whilst writing my dissertation - I'm so glad to have all the stations at my fingertips.
Posted by: Dan Karran | August 21, 2005 at 04:12 PM
hi dan, sure this isn't the place for this - but thought i'd tell someone :) - when using mozilla the radio player doesn't work properly - the forward, pause buttons don't work. Maybe there is something I can do - other than have to use IE (which works). cheers, ben p.s. why aren't more popular programs (the archers etc.) available as podcasts - you can record them, but it means you have to leave the comnputer on for the length of the program... just wondering. We live in France and couldn't survive without the BBC Internet radio.
Posted by: ben | March 25, 2006 at 02:07 PM
Trackbacks sent to this post at the time (before I turned trackbacks off):
» User interface for on-demand radio from DJ Alchemi
A couple of days ago the BBC launched Version 2 of its successful BBC Radio Player. Rather than attempt a review — except to say it seems to be an... [Read More]
Posted by: Dan | May 01, 2006 at 06:31 PM
My Safari crashes every time I press listen live.
Running latest Safari and osx 10.4.9
I want my beeb back!
Please. xx
Posted by: Chris Mitch | March 15, 2007 at 01:29 AM