REVIEW: Hidden Systems: Water, Electricity, the Internet, and the Secrets Behind the Systems We Use Every Day (nonfiction graphic novel) by Dan Nott

Hidden Systems is a nonfiction graphic novel. I bought my copy new.

Review:

This was a fascinating read, although it became more focused on the historical context of the systems and less on how they function as the book progressed. If you're most interested in how things function, the internet section was the best.

There were times I would have liked to know more about how the systems functioned, but I did appreciate the way Nott highlighted the effects of the systems we've set up and the ways they prioritize some people over others.

There are brief mentions of examples of infrastructure failures - Nott calls out PG&E, and I believe the Texas power grid comes up (I may be misremembering that - goodness knows I thought about the February 2021 big freeze and the Texas power grid failure a lot during the power grid section) - but it would have been nice to see more of that. I suppose that could have made the book too dated too quickly, though.

There were excellent notes at the end, with bibliographical info. Unfortunately, the notes didn't include page numbers - they only pointed to the chapter and first words of the text they were referring to. Page numbers would have been really useful.