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Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places
Outside Lies Magic is a book about the acute observation of ordinary things, about becoming aware in everyday places, about seeing in utterly new ways, about enriching your life unexpectedly.
For more than 20 years, John R. Stilgoe has developed and practiced the art of exploring the everyday world around us, where so much lies hidden just beneath the surface, offering uncommon knowledge if we but know what to look for. In this remarkable book, Stilgoe inspires us to become explorers on our own–on foot or on bicycle–and by so doing to reap the benefits of escaping, even temporarily, the traps of our programmed lives.
"Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention," he writes. And while sharing his insights on how to explore, Stilgoe provides a fascinating pocket history of the American landscape, as striking in its originality as it is revealing. Stilgoe dissects our visual surroundings; his observations will transform the way you see everything. Through his eyes, an abandoned railroad line is redolent of history and future promise; front lawns recall our agrarian past; vacant lots hold cathedrals of potential.
From the electrical grid overhead to fences, malls, and main streets, Stilgoe offers a fresh understanding of the links and fractures in our society. After reading Outside Lies Magic, your world will never look the same again.
For more than 20 years, John R. Stilgoe has developed and practiced the art of exploring the everyday world around us, where so much lies hidden just beneath the surface, offering uncommon knowledge if we but know what to look for. In this remarkable book, Stilgoe inspires us to become explorers on our own–on foot or on bicycle–and by so doing to reap the benefits of escaping, even temporarily, the traps of our programmed lives.
"Exploration encourages creativity, serendipity, invention," he writes. And while sharing his insights on how to explore, Stilgoe provides a fascinating pocket history of the American landscape, as striking in its originality as it is revealing. Stilgoe dissects our visual surroundings; his observations will transform the way you see everything. Through his eyes, an abandoned railroad line is redolent of history and future promise; front lawns recall our agrarian past; vacant lots hold cathedrals of potential.
From the electrical grid overhead to fences, malls, and main streets, Stilgoe offers a fresh understanding of the links and fractures in our society. After reading Outside Lies Magic, your world will never look the same again.
187 pages, Paperback
First published May 26, 2009
44 people are currently reading
1234 people want to read
About the author
John R. Stilgoe
23 books31 followersJohn Stilgoe is an award-winning historian and photographer who is the Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at the Visual and Environmental Studies Department of Harvard University, where he has been teaching since 1977. He is also a fellow of the Society of American Historians. He was featured on a Sixty Minutes episode in 2004 entitled "The Eyes Have It."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
October 12, 2007
The jacket describes this book as being about “the acute observation of ordinary things.” Being a person more than a few have described as “observant”, I was curious to see what Professor Stilgoe had to say about being an everyday explorer.
Stilgoe is the Professor of Landscape History at Harvard, and was featured on 60 minutes a couple of years ago describing the art of exploration, which is the title of the course he teaches. While I didn’t watch the 60 minutes piece, I remembered his name as I saw his book on the shelf of Vroman’s, and figured I would give it a try.
Stilgoe has certainly made an art out of exploration, writing extremely eloquently about it. After only a few pages, you soon realize that his writing style has a purpose, he writes how he means to live. He takes you on a meandering journey filled with interesting, yet unlinked, observations. There is exploration aplenty, but to readers more accustomed to writing that approaches a goal of some sort, it may be frustrating.
But Stilgoe does a nice job of taking you by the hand and walking you through our urban environment, all the while pointing out to you features that were previously in the realm of the mundane, but now with a dash of history and a drop of context seem incredibly interesting. On my walk home from a commute spent reading his chapter on “Lines”, I found myself seeing transformers, coaxial cables, and manhole covers for the first time. Like Stilgoe, I was also prompted to wonder why our country persists with creosote daubed telephone poles – when steel or concrete would be a much more solid choice.
However eloquent this book is, after a couple of chapters it becomes less of a pleasant stroll, and more … political. Not in the overt way of proselytizing for a particular party, but selling you on a certain ideal. Stilgoe teaches you not only how to look at various aspects of our urban environment, but he also begins to tell you how you should feel – which aspects are more important than others, and which urban patterns need to make a comeback. While one may not agree with all of his views, he makes a particularly strong case for why the glory days of the railroad will soon return.
Overall this was a pleasant (and quick) read, which made me think a bit more about why things are the way they are, and what that may mean for what they become tomorrow. Unfortunately it didn’t open the treasure chest of secrets I thought it might, but maybe that’s why I’ve already been pegged as “observant.”
Stilgoe is the Professor of Landscape History at Harvard, and was featured on 60 minutes a couple of years ago describing the art of exploration, which is the title of the course he teaches. While I didn’t watch the 60 minutes piece, I remembered his name as I saw his book on the shelf of Vroman’s, and figured I would give it a try.
Stilgoe has certainly made an art out of exploration, writing extremely eloquently about it. After only a few pages, you soon realize that his writing style has a purpose, he writes how he means to live. He takes you on a meandering journey filled with interesting, yet unlinked, observations. There is exploration aplenty, but to readers more accustomed to writing that approaches a goal of some sort, it may be frustrating.
But Stilgoe does a nice job of taking you by the hand and walking you through our urban environment, all the while pointing out to you features that were previously in the realm of the mundane, but now with a dash of history and a drop of context seem incredibly interesting. On my walk home from a commute spent reading his chapter on “Lines”, I found myself seeing transformers, coaxial cables, and manhole covers for the first time. Like Stilgoe, I was also prompted to wonder why our country persists with creosote daubed telephone poles – when steel or concrete would be a much more solid choice.
However eloquent this book is, after a couple of chapters it becomes less of a pleasant stroll, and more … political. Not in the overt way of proselytizing for a particular party, but selling you on a certain ideal. Stilgoe teaches you not only how to look at various aspects of our urban environment, but he also begins to tell you how you should feel – which aspects are more important than others, and which urban patterns need to make a comeback. While one may not agree with all of his views, he makes a particularly strong case for why the glory days of the railroad will soon return.
Overall this was a pleasant (and quick) read, which made me think a bit more about why things are the way they are, and what that may mean for what they become tomorrow. Unfortunately it didn’t open the treasure chest of secrets I thought it might, but maybe that’s why I’ve already been pegged as “observant.”
January 21, 2018
3.5
I want a bike
I want a bike
June 20, 2022
A beautiful meandering book, it really makes you appreciate the secondary roads, the back alleys, the mundane and unnoticeable parts of our built environment that your eyes glide over but that reveal a lot if you pause and pay attention. Now I want to get on a bike and ride across the US from one coast to the other, following the right-of-ways under electric lines, along abandoned railroads, finding similarities among the Main streets and Second streets of small towns I pass along the way, noticing patterns in locations of the inns and motels. For now I'll just be more attentive and maybe less focused when I am outside: I've found that a small discovery can make my day. It does make the world a bit more magical indeed.
April 2, 2012
Stilgoe’s enthusiasm leaps off the page. This is a swift, entertaining book, an optimistic book about the joys of looking at the world. Sign me up! I’d happily ramble around the city and country with him
February 4, 2019
Absolutely loved this little book - it will teach you to explore and look at the outside world more closely, with a different eye. "Exploration," Dr. Stilgoe writes, "is a liberal art because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens from narrowness."
A gem.
A gem.
July 24, 2018
This is a manifesto. A prompt to become an explorer; to go on leisurely, long walks or bike rides; to take the time to observe one's surroundings and muse on them, for the sheer pleasure of it. It's also a proof of concept, as Stilgoe weaves together insights on seemingly mundane features of the landscape: from the hum of power lines to angled parking spots to the plantings by motels off the highway. It's a beautiful book.
Outdoors, away from things experts have already explained, the slightly thoughtful person willing to look around carefully for a few minutes, to scrutinize things about which he or she knows nothing in particular, begins to be aware, to notice, to explore. And almost always, that person starts to understand, to see great cultural and social and economic and political patterns unnoticed by journalists and other experts. In that understanding may come a desire to cry out, to tell friends or family or total strangers about discoveries great and small, but the understanding may just as well produce a secrecy, a quiet smile, a satisfied nod. Whatever else that understanding of exploration, of discovery, brings, it brings a specialness, a near magic to the explorer that attracts other people who want to know what is so worth looking at. (p. 186)
Outdoors, away from things experts have already explained, the slightly thoughtful person willing to look around carefully for a few minutes, to scrutinize things about which he or she knows nothing in particular, begins to be aware, to notice, to explore. And almost always, that person starts to understand, to see great cultural and social and economic and political patterns unnoticed by journalists and other experts. In that understanding may come a desire to cry out, to tell friends or family or total strangers about discoveries great and small, but the understanding may just as well produce a secrecy, a quiet smile, a satisfied nod. Whatever else that understanding of exploration, of discovery, brings, it brings a specialness, a near magic to the explorer that attracts other people who want to know what is so worth looking at. (p. 186)
November 20, 2009
"Outside Lies Magic" is an inspirational call to exploration. John Stilgoe, however, does not call upon the reader to leave home and explore distant lands; instead, he points out that many places nearby remain unexplored.
While it may seem strange for an author to find wonder in power lines and abandoned railroad tracks, Stilgoe provides a relatively freeform narrative that illustrates how places that most people overlook tell detailed stories of how people lived and worked in the past. Stilgoe's book provides a set of examples, admittedly limited, of how a casual observer can read the landscape around them.
This work doesn't strive to be a comprehensive guide to urban exploration. There are no footnotes, no bibliography, and no suggestions for further reading. The uplifting rhetoric in this book, in the end, centers on a strikingly simple objective: Stilgoe wants to inspire his readers to get up, go outside, and have a good look around.
While it may seem strange for an author to find wonder in power lines and abandoned railroad tracks, Stilgoe provides a relatively freeform narrative that illustrates how places that most people overlook tell detailed stories of how people lived and worked in the past. Stilgoe's book provides a set of examples, admittedly limited, of how a casual observer can read the landscape around them.
This work doesn't strive to be a comprehensive guide to urban exploration. There are no footnotes, no bibliography, and no suggestions for further reading. The uplifting rhetoric in this book, in the end, centers on a strikingly simple objective: Stilgoe wants to inspire his readers to get up, go outside, and have a good look around.
March 8, 2011
You see more from a bicycle than you do from a car. You see even more from a balloon-tire Schwinn than you do from a carbon fiber Pinarello.
That’s why author John Stilgoe, in Outside Lies Magic, says to choose the cruiser.
“Bicycle to the store,” he says, “then ride down the alley toward the railroad tracks, bump across the uneven bricks by the loading dock grown up in thistle and chicory, pedal harder uphill toward the Victorian houses converted into funeral homes, make a quick circuit of the school yard, coast downhill…, tail the city bus for a mile or two, swoop through a multilevel parking garage, glide past the firehouse back door, slow down and catch your reflection in the plate-glass windows.”
Where’s Stilgoe taking us? Nowhere in particular; and that’s the point of exploring.
-from http://nicomachus.net/2006/11/the-out...
That’s why author John Stilgoe, in Outside Lies Magic, says to choose the cruiser.
“Bicycle to the store,” he says, “then ride down the alley toward the railroad tracks, bump across the uneven bricks by the loading dock grown up in thistle and chicory, pedal harder uphill toward the Victorian houses converted into funeral homes, make a quick circuit of the school yard, coast downhill…, tail the city bus for a mile or two, swoop through a multilevel parking garage, glide past the firehouse back door, slow down and catch your reflection in the plate-glass windows.”
Where’s Stilgoe taking us? Nowhere in particular; and that’s the point of exploring.
-from http://nicomachus.net/2006/11/the-out...
July 14, 2017
Not at all what I was expecting, but a very interesting discussion of infrastructure and the building of America.
May 6, 2012
A wonderful book that explores the mundane and encourages us to get out and look at what we take for granted everyday. From the powerlines to mailboxes Stilgoe teaches us of the reason behind these everyday inventions and leads the reader to think about how these everyday conveniences have impacted the built environment.
I have told everyone important to me about this book and encourage everyone to read it. I found it fascinating. The sentence structure on occasions required a re-read of the passage for understanding but besides that this is a little book with a tremendous amount of information you will be sharing with your friends and as conversation staters at your next dinner party.
One of the few books I would hold onto to explore again.
I have told everyone important to me about this book and encourage everyone to read it. I found it fascinating. The sentence structure on occasions required a re-read of the passage for understanding but besides that this is a little book with a tremendous amount of information you will be sharing with your friends and as conversation staters at your next dinner party.
One of the few books I would hold onto to explore again.
May 28, 2021
Read this long ago, but thought about this book a few times in the past year while reading media accounts of people getting out to explore their neighborhood on foot for the first time during the pandemic. I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I absolutely agree with the author that there are things to see even in boring environments if one pays attention. On the other hand, I did not love the author's tone and style; it was a bit too academic and prescriptive. Also, it really would have been better as a long essay than an entire book. But though-provoking nonetheless.
March 30, 2012
I'm actually re-reading this book. I first read it a few years ago and liked it very much, but couldn't recall the title or the author. I own a copy of another Stilgoe book titled "Train Time," and seeing it was enough to finally jog my memory. Leave the car at home. Walk or ride a bicycle. Look, really look, at the human-built environment.
March 22, 2023
Great non-fiction read that centers on the concept of exploration : urban, suburban, and rural. The author covers topics like abandoned railway beds, why small towns are laid out as they are, how retail stores arrange their environment, and so many other topics that will spark your imagination and your curiosity.
August 19, 2010
I read this as part of research I'm doing for work. I thought it was intersting and had some interesting bits of trivia, but I found him a bit too lyrical. I know that sounds strange, but I really wondered sometimes, as I got lost in the language, what the point was exactly.
January 14, 2025
Outside Lies Magic speaks to the imagined explorer: you (Stillgoe hopes). The book takes a magnifying glass to the history of American infrastructure, providing poetic descriptions of the yet unappreciated wonders glimmering among the shattered glass of roadsides, within the non-vacant walls of motels, echoing on train tracks, and rattling the rural delivery mailboxes that mark the perimeters of our fenced-in fortresses. I appreciate the expressive liberties with which Stilgoe imbues his nonfiction, but I think a main detractor for me is that this creativity and heart isn’t supplemented by references, annotations, or discrete examples. He does a wonderful job of outlining the historical arcs of our nation’s physical development, and the natural American real-estate sensibilities borne from it, but he is so broad and ambiguous in drawing these parallels and national truisms that the tangible content of the writing slips away from you. The writing lacks a tether to reality and historical specificity, even in spite of its insistent observance of it. A very smart and eye opening book that also leaves much to be desired and described. Then again, who’s to say that the validity of our experiences of the natural world must be doubly confirmed by a scientific or academic perspective? Perhaps I just want a different book, but like genuinely why can’t he cite anything???
For me, the major points I take away from this are:
1) The interstate highway system was created as a tool for the US military (here he is most historically specific about how highways are a tool of control and a testing ground for military machinery)
2) Exploration is a way of life that is attainable to all but tapped into by few. It is always worth appreciating that which falls out of focus from an ever shallow contact with life and its surfaces. I think I embody this attitude already, but reading the book reminded me that it’s a constant choice and effort to live this way. I’m grateful that I keep on choosing it.
For me, the major points I take away from this are:
1) The interstate highway system was created as a tool for the US military (here he is most historically specific about how highways are a tool of control and a testing ground for military machinery)
2) Exploration is a way of life that is attainable to all but tapped into by few. It is always worth appreciating that which falls out of focus from an ever shallow contact with life and its surfaces. I think I embody this attitude already, but reading the book reminded me that it’s a constant choice and effort to live this way. I’m grateful that I keep on choosing it.
May 15, 2018
While I found parts of this book slow-going and hard to get through, the smattering of Super insightful explanations of why things are the way they are made the effort of continuing on worth it. I learned lots of tidbits about fencing, land division, the post office, etc told in a winding sort of way that takes the reader on a journey by asking us to imagine being an explorer on a bicycle. My personal reading preference is quicker paced and more to the point, but perhaps this book should be a catalyst for my style to change, to stop and smell the roses, and to notice things that others might not.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about our common English / American phrases and more.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about our common English / American phrases and more.
May 19, 2021
An absolutely fascinating book about the value of slowing down and truly looking at the landscape around you. I've been a street photographer for a few years now (even if I'm a bit out of practice lately) and the insights and ideas that gird this book are ones I hold very dear to my heart and find truly fascinating. The American suburban landscape is beautiful especially in the places where it is most commonly ignored, the small strange foibles that every citizen takes for granted. The ideas and suggestions in this book still ring incredibly true and make for fascinating thought. Go out for a walk and really think about what you're looking at. Read this book and you'll understand it that much more.
May 10, 2023
I interlibrary loaned this book after re-encountering it as a recommendation in a long ago internet thread about long walks. Anyway, this book shares some qualities I would ordinarily enjoy but the way the author decided to make the main character in the book an explorer we always have to follow around the landscape gets tired about 1/3 of the way in (*for me*) and there was some super-annoying/dated references to lady drivers and men as pillars of civic engagement in organizations like rotary that also include women. I prefer the Keri Smith book "The Wander Society" if we are talking books for the wandering set...but as I said there were a few interesting bits that kept me at least skim reading until the very end.
July 16, 2021
I read this while I was staying with family on a visit to the US. It emphasizes how much more a person can see when walking or biking as opposed to sitting in a car in traffic. Sadly, so much of the US is car dependent or inaccessible to pedestrians that it makes sense for him to mention it here. I don't really think that it is a political statement just a sad comment on how infrastructures and communities were organized in the US. I'm very happy that I live in the EU and can go on long walks or bike rides easily, finding details on buildings and streets that I would not be able to do in most communities in the states. It's a great read about observation and exploration.
August 12, 2020
This wasn't what I expected, but it was a quick, pleasant read. Instead of providing some kind of formula for regaining history and awareness in everyday places, Stilgoe tells you it's possible, and then gives an eclectic collection of interesting historical facts about the mail service, train tracks, and power lines; then he sends you out to go on a walk and puzzle out the meaning of things yourself.
September 18, 2017
I enjoyed it, but as a city planner it was more validating, or inspirational, than educational. Given the dramatic cultural shift in America from "quality time" to "screen time," Stilgoe's work is a valuable, even needful, reminder to reconnect with and appreciate our community, the Earth, and life.
March 16, 2018
This book was possibly the most boring read I've experienced so far. The first and last chapters were good - there was a clear, enticing call to be better observers of the world around us. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in between was a self-serving, bloated, meandering drivel that imparted no real meaning.
May 19, 2018
This book was not available new, so I bought a used copy. This imaginative book is about exploring—walking or biking outside with no structure or purpose other than observing your surroundings and finding the history all around you—what do the trees, poles, fences, and plants say about what came before, and how do the natural and man made come together? I found his writing original and beautiful.
November 20, 2023
“In the United States, perhaps the best prototype remains the Pennsylvania Turnpike, built on a nevercompleted main line railroad alignment – and once running through narrow tunnels built for trains - very late in the 1930s and carefully watched by military officers from the United States Army and from the German Wehrmacht.”
May 5, 2021
I adored this book. Published in 1998, it makes the perfect companion/chaser to “How to Do Nothing” by @jennitaur. It will make you want to explore your surroundings no matter how dull they may seem, and you’ll learn things you had no idea were knowable.
September 20, 2024
A refreshing look at life and how to explore the world around you with curious eyes - taking a breath and a pause from the fast pace of life.
More focused on the US and using a lot of American references, this is still a good read for anyone wishing to reset and refresh.
More focused on the US and using a lot of American references, this is still a good read for anyone wishing to reset and refresh.
October 29, 2017
There is so much that we simply don't see as we navigate our daily worlds, and this book is all about taking the blinders off. Wonderful and highly recommended.
March 6, 2018
Seems dated in many ways, but still contains many ideas about viewing neighborhoods and the world that are relevant as ever.
August 25, 2018
Encourages the art of looking and asking, "I wonder...".
May 22, 2020
Challenged me to see things differently. Can never observe a fence without thinking- why? Well written .
Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews