Review: Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: Good design makes us feel first.

I picked up Emotional Design because the idea sounded fascinating. Norman looks at why we like certain objects even when they aren't necessarily the most practical ones. The example that stayed with me was the Juicy Salif lemon squeezer by Philippe Starck. It looks fantastic, almost like a piece of sculpture, but apparently isn't particularly good at actually squeezing lemons. And that's exactly Norman's point. We don't judge things only by whether they work. We also react to how they look and how they make us feel. His breakdown of design into visceral, behavioural and reflective levels was probably the most useful part of the book. You can see it everywhere once you start thinking about it. A beautifully designed car, an old watch you are emotionally attached to, even the packaging of something you buy. There is always more going on than just function.

Having said that, I found the book pretty average. There are some genuinely good ideas here, but Norman takes a while to get through them and I felt he was making the same point in slightly different ways. I also expected the book to leave me thinking much more deeply about design than it actually did. Instead, I came away with a fairly simple takeaway: good design isn't just about making something work, it is about making people want to use it and feel something about it. Worth reading if you're interested in design or products, but I wouldn't call it a must read.

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Review: Piranesi

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Hooter: Beautiful world, very long walk.

Piranesi is a strange book. Very strange. The whole thing takes place in this enormous House with endless rooms, corridors, statues, staircases and an ocean that periodically floods parts of it. Piranesi lives there and spends his days exploring the House, documenting the statues, the tides and the birds. The world Clarke has created is probably the best thing about the book. It feels completely removed from anything familiar, and there were moments when I could actually picture myself walking through those enormous halls. The statues in particular are such a nice touch because every room seems to contain something bizarre and beautiful. There is something almost dreamlike about the whole place.

My problem was getting through the journey. It felt very long and very slow, especially in the first half. I understood that the slow pace was part of the experience and that we were supposed to discover the House at the same pace as Piranesi, but I found myself waiting for something to happen quite often. Once the mystery around who Piranesi really is and what the Other is doing starts to unfold, things become much more interesting. But by then I had already spent a lot of time wandering around the House. I can appreciate what Clarke was trying to do, and I really liked the idea behind the book, but I didn't enjoy the reading experience as much as I expected to. For me, it was a fantastic world that took a very long time to get anywhere

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Review: The Mumbai School for Murder

The Mumbai School for Murder by Meeti Shroff-Shah
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: Old-school whodunit soap opera style

The Mumbai School for Murder is the third book in Meeti Shroff-Shah's series, but my first. Read as a standalone, it works well enough, though I suspect that's also why the mystery felt more familiar than surprising.

The setup is engaging at a prestigious Mumbai school, simmering rivalries between students, parents and faculty, and a murder that pulls everyone into the spotlight. The investigation throws in enough diversions to keep you guessing: suspicious teachers, ambitious parents, old grudges and conveniently timed secrets all take turns looking guilty. These wild goose chases do their job, but they never quite managed to shake my expectation of where the story was headed.

That's not to say the journey is dull. The school ecosystem feels authentic, especially the politics around reputation, admissions, PTA dynamics and the pressure-cooker environment that surrounds elite institutions. If you've ever attended a school annual day where every parent behaved like a campaign manager, some scenes will raise a knowing smile.

Perhaps readers who've followed the earlier books will appreciate recurring characters and relationships that add more depth. Coming in fresh, I found the central mystery competent but a little too predictable, with the final reveal landing closer to "as expected" than "I didn't see that coming."

An enjoyable weekend read if you like light, contemporary Indian murder mysteries but don't expect the ending to graduate at the top of its class.

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