A (New) Weekly Dose of Architecture Books

From Blogger to Substack

Twenty-five years ago I started A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books — on January 18, 1999, with a post about Louis I. Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum — and this week I wrote my last post on the blog, briefly recapping those two-and-a-half decades, complete with portraits of yours truly over roughly the same period.

I had mentioned here and there on my blog in recent months, usually subtly and tangentially, that I would be wrapping up my blog this month. That was the plan I stuck to, though I didn’t really know, until mulling it over last month, if I would just stop this side project entirely or transition it here, to this Substack newsletter. I decided to do the latter: I’ll continue A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books as an email newsletter, but in a slightly different format than what it has been since 2021, when Feedburner folded and I started writing this newsletter as a way to let people know about updates to my blog. So, certain things will go away (#archidosereads, books received), others will remain (a review, news), and some items will be introduced (new books, books from the archives).

An outline of the new A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books newsletter:

• Architecture Book of the Week: My commentary on a recently published architecture book, similar to what I was doing on my blog but not as lengthy, and entirely in the newsletter (no clicking over to “read more about…”).

• Architecture Books Released This Week: A curated, annotated list of architecture books being released in the United States the same week as the newsletter, with links to publishers and Amazon/Bookshop.

• Architecture Book News: As before, a few headlines related to architecture books.

• From the Archives: To get a sense of how architectural publishing has changed in the last 25-plus years, and to accentuate that newer isn’t always better, I’ll point to another book I reviewed “on this week in 20__” and grab and draw attention to an old book that is related to the Book of the Week.

So, if you’re reading this in your inbox, and are therefore already subscribed to this newsletter, you don’t need to do anything; you’ll start receiving the newly formatted newsletter next week. As before, they will arrive in your inbox on Mondays, a day ahead of the new releases. If you’re reading this on Substack or were forwarded this newsletter, here’s a handy subscribe button for you:

Lastly, the elephant in the room: paid subscriptions. One reason I had to mull over transitioning from Blogger to Substack is that, deep down, I believe in blogs, namely in how they are easy to create, immediate, and freely accessible. They’re ideal for what is, for me, an outlet, a hobby — something that feeds my interests but doesn’t seek to pay the rent. Substack, on the other hand, is one antithetical example of that, with much of its content, by design, partitioned behind a paywall. So, while I’m not going to introduce a paywall, I have enabled paid subscriptions — voluntary subscriptions that will help keep this labor of love going, making the many hours I put into it pay for themselves … or at least pay for a few books I’ll include in the newsletter! If you’re one of the subscribers that has already pledged a subscription: Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

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Thank you for subscribing to A Weekly Dose of Architecture Books. If you have any comments or questions, or if you want to see your book in this newsletter, please respond to this email, or comment below if you’re reading this online.

— John Hill