Please recommend books that feature St. Louis:



Photography - New, Old, and Old & New

History Books

Travel Guides

Novels that accurately depict St. Louis currently or in the past

And anything else you can think of.



It would be helpful if you know the title and author so they can be easily found and ordered.

St. Louis really needs an updated picture book. There were two picture books that I looked at when I was at the Arch and both were missing pictures that they should've had in them or they had very outdated pictures.



One book had a picture of Busch Stadium with the caption that this is where the Cardinals play but put in a picture of Busch Stadium with the football setup.

I couldn't recommend more highly Jonathan Franzen's, "The Twenty-Seventh City.



The longer you live here the more you will think the book isn't fiction.

UAB - I agree. The picture books available for St. Louis are lame and out of date. They don't reflect the real St. Louis - not even close.



Someone should publish a book called Urban St. Louis with the pics found on this website. If they can't publish a book, how about selling "picture cds" at souvenir shops with these great pics - title, of course, Urban St. Louis. There is an unmet need just lying there waiting to be exploited. St. Louis deserves better than what is available at the souvenir shops and book stores. I want the world to see what we are seeing.

For history, check out Lion of the Valley. It's fairly old (written early eighties) so you won't get any recent history, but has some great info in it. Interestingly, his final chapter, which deals with the late seventies/early eighties, is entitled "Urban Renaissance." Jumping the gun a bit, wasn't he? Anyway, although a bit drab at points--viz. some shady railroad dealings in the mid nineteenth century--it is highly recommended. Available on Amazon.



As for Twenty-Seventh City, I would say pass--pretty crappy fiction if you ask me.

I have a couple. One is St. Louis: Landmarks and Historic Districts by Caroyln Hewes Toft with Lynn Josse. It contains photos of historic buildings by neighborhood as well as a little history. The end of the book is a kind of in memorium of those buildings no longer with us. Great book.



Link to Amazon



I also have one called Mill Creek Valley a Soul of Saint Louis by Ron Fagerstrom. It's about the wholesale clearance of the neigborhood for urban renewal and Hwy 40. That's what I heard, haven't read it yet!

There are many books on STL or STL neighborhoods like



Carondelet, Laf. Sq., Soulard, Downtown, Union Station, North (Old North St. Louis), Central West End, Garden District, University City, Florissant, Maplewood or Brentwood, Kinloch, Ville, St. Louis from 1875-1920s?, The Hill, Kingsbury, Compton Heights, Westmoreland/Portland, Washington Terrace, Forest Park, and more to come.



General books include St. Louis Then and Now, Landmarks book(my personal favorite because it's loaded with details), others from 70s.

There is a National Geographic on St. Louis and Westward Expansion from the sixtys. Mississippi Portraits (more than STL).



Uncommon finds, a history book on Ladue; and St. Louis Today



The St. Louis Today book is a very rare find, found at the MO Historical Society and Mercantile Library at UMSL. And my St. Louis history loving ancestors had one too. Published in 1907 by the St. Louis Business Men's League. It contains 100 pages. One day I will scan the pages in again after my computer meltdown when I had 30 pages scanned.



In all I have thirty books on or relating to St. Louis.

What are examples of books that the urbanSTL community would enjoy? For example, classic books on urbanism to books about urban issues in St. Louis, etc...

I bought St. Louis: Landmarks & Historic Districts (Carolyn Hewes Toft with Lynn Josse) from Left Bank Books a few years ago. It's a nice overview of some outstanding buildings in St. Louis. It's from 2002 so parts of it are a little outdated (a few things have since been demolished, others returned to life). It's not super in-depth on any particular building/district, but it's good for getting a little background about a lot of different buildings/districts.

^ Thanks! And I see that there's a really nice thread here: http://urbanstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6422.

D'oh!

I've read Fragmented by Design and Mapping Decline in the past month. Must reads; they will make you sad and frustrated. I'm starting Lion of the Valley now.

Not quite on point, but I really enjoyed Cahokia Mounds: America's First City which came out last year.

I picked up a used copy of "Empty City" by Gabriel Shapiro at Left Bank Books last fall and read it in a few days.

http://www.amazon.com/Empty-City-Gabrie ... 1401035965

It's a novel about a teacher with a teenage son who relocates to inner city Detroit and becomes a committed urbanist determined to turn his new neighborhood around.


Reading about Detroit makes me appreciate that St. Louis has not emptied out to that degree.

I frequently refer to "Where We Live: A Guide To St. Louis Communities" edited by Tim Fox, a MoHist imprint.

Thanks all! Say hello to the new urbanSTL store! It's a great place to find media on urbanism and other local topics that matter to you. --- http://goo.gl/SvWyV

Nice! That's a cool feature to have. Is there any way to direct people to the local bookstores as well (Left Bank, Subterranean, etc)?

rbeedee wrote:Nice! That's a cool feature to have. Is there any way to direct people to the local bookstores as well (Left Bank, Subterranean, etc)?

Thanks rbeedee. I've applied for a Left Bank affiliate account to see how well that would work. We'll see!

It is important to note that a good many of the books in the "bookstore" section of this site are text books. While that is not a bad thing, some might want to consider this before purchasing.


Anyway...here are a few books I feel urbanSTLers would enjoy...


The Old Neighborhood - Ray Suarez
(revisiting what we lost)

The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs
(a must read IMO, truly splendid and a very accurate description of how cities function, with interesting stories. I think it is 600pgs, but I read it in a week...fast read)

The Spaces between Buildings - Larry Ford
(Interesting discussion about the importance of spaces between buildings)

The City Reader - Multiple articles, summarizing major works

The Urban Design Reader - Michael Larice, Elizabeth Macdonald

St. Louis: Evolution Of American Urban Landscape - Eric Sandweiss
(great history of STL)

Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature - Douglas Farr
(sort of a textbook, interesting range of information)

Cities on the Rebound: A Vision for Urban America - William H. Hudnut III
(former mayor tells his story as well as the story of cities on the rise)

American Urban Architecture: Catalysts in the Design of Cities - Attoe And Logan

A Sand County Almanac - Aldo Leopold
(for the nature/country lovers - great read - title is sort of misleading in some ways)

Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World - Robert Neuwirth
(Very insightful book about how the "other half lives", if you will)



This is just a start, but I hope to add more to the list as I think of them.