Some architecture books worth reading

This list of books would serve as both essential reading and an excellent gift for those studying architecture or working in the field. These editions are filled with so many artistically impressive works that they're accessible to non-professional beauty and design lovers and even young readers.

World Architecture:A Cross-Cultural History

Richard Ingersoll

Paperback $125.95

This book is primarily a college-level text, yet its collection of more than 800 superb color pictures makes it appealing to anyone who appreciates interesting buildings. It also includes an instructor's CD of PowerPoint presentations.

·Exploring related societal issues

·Useful timelines and case analysis

Architecture:A Visual History

Jonathan Glancey

Hardcover $30

Want to explore architecture but lack experience in the field? Here's a great choice. This in formative but easy-to-understand book covers everything from ancient stupas(舍利塔)to contem porary skyscrapers. Its clean format together with more than 400 images also provides abundant in- formation that engages readers’ interest.

·Thirteen 3D artworks

·Structures around the globe

Seeking New York:The Stories Behind the Historic Architecture of Manhattan -One Building at a Time

Tom Miller

Paperback $22.5

This book allows readers to revisit Manhattan's splendid past through its incredible architec ture.Those who appreciate city planning,construction,or the Big Apple should never miss it.

Lots of specific information

Showing destroyed structures

The Story of Buildings :From the Pyramids to the Sydney Opera House and Beyond Patrick Dillon

Hardcover $19.99

This one can be used as a wonderful way to introduce architecture to children. The book has a unique format,with detailed drawings that take readers inside well-known buildings. At the beginning of each chapter, there's an overview of a certain historical stage.

·Featuring 16 famous buildings

·Plenty of double-page images

People will say firmly their childhood memory is real, offering amazing detail as proof that it must be, and getting upset if you suggest they are wrong.

But, for years, scientists have questioned whether these memories could actually be true, given what we know about neuroscience (神经科学) and the brain. The human brain grows and develops in clear stages. As it grows and creates and adapts, so different developmental stages are reached. These stages are the result of millions of years of evolution (进化). Now, finally, a study has proved this. Researchers from Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, reviewed decades worth of data to understand the earliest age at which lasting memories form and they have believed that it is around 30 months.

So people who think they remember something from when they were a baby are, I am afraid, mistaken. The problem with early memories is that they are very easy to fabricate, which is what I did.

I have a vivid image of standing in the garden, my mum holding a flower and laughing. It’s one of my first memories. I must have been 18 months old because we moved from that house before I was two. I could swear it was real.

Years ago, when I shared this memory with my mum, she shook her head and produced a photo. It showed her in a garden, laughing and holding a flower. But it was taken three years before I was born. That beautiful memory is a work of fiction (虚构): an old photo that used to hang on the wall.

I’ll admit to feeling shocked and robbed when I realized this memory was entirely false. It made me question other things I remember as a child, too. A study into this event published a few years ago found that around 40 per cent of us say that we have memories from before the age of two. But it’s the mind playing tricks on us taking old stories or photos and turning them into a memory.

While it can be disappointing to realize that a recollection you hold so dear might not be true, it does provide a good lesson in how changeable memory can be.