Bill Hillier, professor of architecture at University College London, is best
known for his innovative ideas on designing public spaces (Space Is the Machine,
$25.95, ISBN 052164528X). It seems appropriate for someone who challenges
current thinking to be reading The Definition of the Thing by John William
Miller, a reinterpretation of the history of philosophy (W. W. Norton,
£9.95, ISBN 0393300595)
Hillier says he doesn’t get much time to read fiction. But his current
lighter reading is George Steiner’s 1967 classic on the power of language,
Language and Silence (Faber, £11.99, ISBN 0571135536) because “it talks
about people like me”. If he were to give a book it would be Edmund Spenser’s
Irish Experience by Andrew Hadfield (Clarendon, £35, ISBN 0198183453). The
book is a re-examination of Spenser’s poem, The Faerie Queen (Penguin,
£15.99, ISBN 0140422072)