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Anca Bodea

@_oneweekonebook_

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One book read and reviewed every week.
Nonfiction, mostly.

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Welcome to OWOB!

Time to say hello - I’m Anca, a 42 years old Romanian living in Zürich, Switzerland, architect by profession, reader and writer by passion.

I started this account and a movement to read one book per week, after a simple realisation: so many books hold powerful ideas worth sharing - ideas that help us grow and live with more clarity and joy.

If you love inspiring reads, beautiful words and thoughtful conversation, you’re in the right place.

I hope this space will inspire a new rhythm for life: reading one book a week, growing a little wiser each day.

Let’s make it a new kind of trend.

#bookstagram
#owob by @_oneweekonebook_

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a year ago

#OneWeekOneBook
#ReadingHabits
#ReadMoreBooks
#Bookstagram
#ReadersOfInstagram taken in Zürich, Switzerland by @_oneweekonebook_

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2 months ago

A short reminder of why this project exists. 📖

#oneweekonebook
#independentthinking
#bookstagram
#nonfictionbooks
#bookreviews by @_oneweekonebook_

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3 months ago

#AreWeHuman #DesignAndTechnology #CriticalThinking #HumanBehaviour #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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2 days ago

‘Are We Human? Notes on an Archaeology of Design’ by Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley

The book explores a provocative proposition: humans do not simply design their environments; the objects and technologies they create also shape what it means to be human.

It is an interesting premise, and one I find broadly convincing. Yet, having finished the book, I felt I had encountered an elaborate way of expressing an idea rather than a substantially new understanding of it.

At times, the discourse seemed to cultivate an aesthetic of its own, relying on provocative inversions, unexpected associations and sweeping declarations that appeared designed as much to produce an intellectual effect as to clarify a proposition. ‘Are We Human?’ originated in the context of the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennial, which helps explain its associative structure and conceptual provocations.

I agree with challenging the idea that design is neutral. A chair, a house, a hospital or a smartphone does more than perform a function. Each establishes relationships between bodies, activities, technologies and social expectations. Design is therefore also a cultural and political activity, not merely a technical or aesthetic one.

At the same time it seemed to me that the meaning of design is expanded quite far. There is a difference between saying that design influences human behaviour and arguing that it produces humanity. The latter requires more careful distinctions about causality and human agency.

Ultimately, my reservation is not with the central idea, but with the relationship between the complexity of its discourse and the understanding produced by that complexity. I appreciated individual historical observations more than the overarching theoretical construction.

I would recommend it with some reservations, bearing in mind that an argument can be intellectually stimulating without being entirely convincing.

Many thanks @larsmullerpublishers for the review copy.

#AreWeHuman #DesignTheory #CriticalDesign #ArchitectureAndDesign #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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6 days ago

Introducing OWOB/3:

A new OneWeekOneBook series in which I invite guests to choose three books that have shaped their thinking.

The idea is to explore how a book can influence the work we pursue and the way we understand the world.

The series opens with Carl Honoré, author of ‘In Praise of Slow’, ‘The Slow Fix’, ‘Under Pressure’ and ‘Bolder’.

Thank you, @carlhonore, for sharing these books and the personal stories behind them.

Which book has shaped the way you think?

#OneWeekOneBook #OWOB3 #CarlHonore #BookRecommendations #ReadingLife by @_oneweekonebook_

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8 days ago

#TheTroubleWithBigData #BigData #CriticalThinking #DataLiteracy #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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9 days ago

‘The Trouble with Big Data’ by J. Edmond, N. Horsley, J. Lehmann & M. Priddy

OK, so what exactly is the trouble with big data? The authors challenge the assumption that more data means better understanding, looking into how datafication can reshape cultural practices and strip complex phenomena of context, ambiguity and forms of knowledge that resist quantification.

They look at datafication from several angles: how we research and produce knowledge, what becomes visible or remains hidden, questions of accuracy and representation, who owns and controls data, what happens to human sense-making in increasingly computational systems.

A warning, though: this is an academic book, and it is quite dense and written in academic syntax, so it requires some patience.

One of the main points is the contrast between traditional archival research and keyword-based search. The former is slower and requires specialist knowledge, but preserves context, provenance and relationships between material; search engines expand access but can detach information from the context that gives it meaning.

A few pages in, I noticed generative AI was largely absent; then I checked the publication date: 2022, just before its mainstream rise. This could take the book’s argument one step further: AI search is neither archival nor conventional keyword search. It can navigate context, but it can also become a replacement for context, connecting information across multiple domains into plausible answers that sometimes are not factually correct.

The general argument favours a humanistic approach to knowledge: computational systems excel at detecting patterns, but understanding also requires context, interpretation and narrative.

On who benefits from datafication, I agree with the case for policies that make its value serve the public good rather than primarily powerful corporations and institutions.

I read it as the beginning of a conversation that has become more urgent in recent years. A lot of info in it, but you got the main idea. Happy reading!

Thanks @bloomsburyacademic @bloomsburypublishing for the copy!

#TheTroubleWithBigData #BigData #DigitalHumanities #Datafication #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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13 days ago

New books have arrived at OWOB!

Very happy to begin a new collaboration with Lars Müller Publishers.

Lars Müller Publishers has a distinctive approach to books on design, architecture and visual culture, so I hope these reviews will spark your interest in their work as well.

The selected titles move from design and knowledge to social impact and the ways we understand information. I’ll be reading and sharing more from this selection over the coming weeks. In the meantime, a little about each below:

Are We Human? - Beatriz Colomina & Mark Wigley
An investigation into the relationship between design and the human condition, asking whether design simply responds to who we are or actively constructs what it means to be human.

Ex-formation - Kenya Hara
A counterpoint to our obsession with information. Hara explores the value of not knowing, proposing that recognising the limits of our knowledge can itself become a powerful method of discovery and design.

EOOS: Designing Impact - edited by Lars Müller
A look at the work and thinking of EOOS, exploring how design can move beyond objects to engage with social questions, systems and tangible forms of impact.

Designing Universal Knowledge - Gerlinde Schuller
An exploration of how complex knowledge can be organised, visualised and made intelligible and of the role design plays in shaping how we understand information.

Many thanks to @larsmullerpublishers for sending these review copies.

#LarsMüllerPublishers #DesignBooks #ArchitectureBooks #VisualCulture #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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13 days ago

#TheRighteousMind #JonathanHaidt #MoralPsychology #CriticalThinking #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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17 days ago

‘The Righteous Mind’ by Jonathan Haidt

The book’s main question is: why can intelligent, well-intentioned people look at the same question and reach completely different moral conclusions? Haidt’s answer draws on moral psychology, politics, religion, and evolutionary theory.

He begins with a distinction I had already encountered in Kahneman’s ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’: intuitive versus deliberate thinking. Haidt’s memorable version is the elephant and the rider. The elephant represents our largely automatic intuitions; the rider, conscious reasoning. He argues that moral intuition usually comes first, while reason often follows to explain or defend our view. I find the distinction convincing, although less absolute than the metaphor suggests.

Further, he develops a Moral Foundations Theory that proposes six dimensions of morality: care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity and argues that cultures and political groups assign different importance to each. For example, liberals are focused more on care and fairness, but conservatives are focused on the full spectrum, which gives them advantages at the societal level.

I particularly related to Haidt’s experience of encountering different moral value systems in other cultures. Living or travelling abroad can force you to examine assumptions that previously seemed self-evident. Same with reading.

One point worth mentioning is about our “groupish” nature: communities give us cooperation, belonging, and meaning, but the same mechanisms can produce tribalism. As he puts it, morality can bind and blind. This idea leads to the division topic, where I sensed an effort to step outside the usual political spectrum and understand the moral logic of different positions, even though Haidt identified as liberal when he was younger.

I really liked the book; there are a multitude of ideas worth mentioning, but not enough space here. I’ll leave you with Glaucon’s question, also mentioned in the book: would we still act morally if we knew there would be no consequences and no one would ever know?

#TheRighteousMind #JonathanHaidt #MoralPsychology #NonFictionBooks #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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19 days ago

More new books at OWOB!

Very happy to be collaborating with Bloomsbury Academic and to have four new titles joining my reading list.

This selection moves across technology, culture, creativity and society, from the growing presence of social robots and the politics of technological change to the consequences of datafication and what creativity might mean in the age of AI.

I’ll be reading and reviewing these titles on OWOB over the coming weeks. A little about each below:

Social Robots: A Fictional Dualism Model - Paula Sweeney

An exploration of social robots and the increasingly blurred boundaries between human and machine, using fiction and dualism as a framework for thinking about how we relate to artificial social agents.

The Trouble with Big Data - Jennifer Edmond, Nicola Horsley, Jörg Lehmann & Mike Priddy

A critical look at datafication and what can be lost when complex cultural practices are translated into data, questioning the assumption that more data necessarily produces better understanding.

What Art Is Now: Creativity in the Age of AI - Michael E. Jones & Michael Caballes

An examination of creativity at a moment when generative AI is challenging established ideas about authorship, artistic practice and what we consider art.

Technology and Equality - edited by Sven Ove Hansson & Colleen Murphy

A collection examining the relationship between technological development and equality, asking who benefits from innovation, who may be disadvantaged by it, and how those consequences might be addressed.

Many thanks to @bloomsburyacademic and @bloomsburypublishing for sending these review copies.

#BloomsburyAcademic #TechnologyBooks #ArtificialIntelligence #SocialScienceBooks #OneWeekOneBook by @_oneweekonebook_

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21 days ago