After we’d returned from Japan, before we instituted the Moderate Frugality pact, and before I put myself on a news ban, I read an article in The Guardian about one of my favourite architectural movements.

So much do I love it that I think I follow every account on instagram with a brutalist bent (okay, maybe I follow 6 accounts).

There was a book mentioned at the end of the piece and I knew it had to be mine. When This Brutal World arrived I was in heaven!

It’s full of fabulously fabulous images, some of which you can see in the Guardian gallery here

Of course, my beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower was featured and many of the usual suspects, but also many wonderful buildings that I’ve never seen before.

It is hardcover (sort of) and the binding is quite unusual – artful or horribly cheap? I can’t decide.

And while I adore the pretty pictures, I find the typeface the complete opposite of delightful:

I adore it to bits, even despite the challenging binding and typeface. And after flicking through now have a yearning to see High Rise