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Henry Petroski
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Beyond Engineering: Essays and Other Attempts to Figure Without Equationsby Henry PetroskiISBN 0312077858 (0-312-07785-8)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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The Book on the Bookshelfby Henry PetroskiISBN 0375706399 (0-375-70639-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book on the Bookshelf'Book summary:Consider the book. Though Goodnight Moon and Finnegans Wake differ considerably in content and intended audience, they do share some basic characteristics. They have pages, they're roughly the same shape, and whether in a bookstore, library, or private home, they are generally stored vertically on shelves. Indeed, this is so much the norm that in these days of high-tech printing presses and chain bookstores, it's easy to believe that the book, like the cockroach, remains much the same as it ever was. But as Henry Petroski makes abundantly clear in Book on the Bookshelf, books as we know them have had a long and complex evolution. Indeed, he takes us from the scroll to the codex to the hand-lettered illuminated texts that were so rare and valuable they were chained to lecterns to prevent theft. Along the way he provides plenty of amusing anecdotes about libraries (according to one possibly apocryphal account, the library at Alexandria borrowed the works of the great Greek authors from Athens, had them copied, and then sent the copies back, keeping the originals), book collectors, and the care of books.
Book-lover though he may be, however, Henry Petroski is, first and foremost, an engineer and so, in the end, it is the evolution of bookshelves even more than of books that fascinates him. Pigeonholes for scrolls, book presses containing thousands of chained volumes, rotating lecterns that allowed scholars to peruse more than one book at a time--these are just a few of the ingenious methods readers have devised over the centuries for storing their books: "in cabinets beneath the desks, on shelves in front of them, in triangular attic-like spaces formed under the back-to-back sloped surfaces of desktops or small tabletop lecterns that rested upon a horizontal surface." Placing books vertically on shelves, spines facing outward, is a fairly recent invention, it would seem. Well written as it is, if Book on the Bookshelf were only about books-as-furniture, it would have little appeal to the general reader. Petroski, however, uses this treatise on design to examine the very human motivations that lie behind it. From the example of Samuel Pepys, who refused to have more titles than his library could hold (about 3,000), to an appendix detailing all the ways people organize their collections (by sentimental value, by size, by color, and by price, to name a few of the more unconventional methods), Petroski peppers his account with enough human interest to keep his audience reading from cover to cover. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineeringby Henry PetroskiISBN 0521466490 (0-521-46649-0)
Softcover, Cambridge Univ Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering'Book summary:From classical temples to twentieth century towers, engineers have learned more about design from failure than from success. The concept of error, according to the author of Design Paradigms, is central to the design process. As a way of explaining the enduring aspects of engineering design, Henry Petroski relates stories of some of the greatest engineering successes and failures of all time. These case studies, drawn from a wide range of times and places, from Ancient Greece and Rome to modern America, serve as paradigms of error and judgment in engineering design. By showing how errors were introduced in the design process and how they might be avoided, the book suggests how better quality and reliability might be achieved in designed devices, structures, and systems of all kinds. Clearly written, with striking illustrations, the book will appeal to engineering students, practicing engineers, historians of science and technology, and all those interested in learning about the process of design. [via]
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Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineerby Henry PetroskiISBN 0375718982 (0-375-71898-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer'Book summary:Anyone wondering what sort of experience prepares one for a future as an engineer may be surprised to learn that it includes delivering newspapers. But as Henry Petroski recounts his youth in 1950s Queens, New Yorka borough of handball games and inexplicably numbered streetshe winningly shows how his after-school job amounted to a prep course in practical engineering.
Petroksis paper was The Long Island Press, whose headlines ran to COP SAVES OLD WOMAN FROM THUG and DiMAG SAYS BUMS CANT WIN SERIES. Folding it into a tube suitable for throwing was an exercise in post-Euclidean geometry. Maintaining a Schwinn revealed volumes about mechanics. Reading Paperboy, we also learn about the hazing rituals of its namesakes, the aesthetics of kitchen appliances, and the delicate art of penny-pitching. With gratifying reflections on these and other lessons of a bygone eralessons about diligence, labor, and community-mindednessPaperboy is a piece of Americana to cherish and reread. [via]More editions of Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer:
- Paperboy : Confessions of a Future Engineer: ISBN 0375413537 (0-375-41353-7)
Hardcover, Knopf Publishing Group - Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer: ISBN 0606314377 (0-606-31437-7)
Hardcover, Demco Media - Paperboy: Confessions of a Future Engineer: ISBN 0375718982 (0-375-71898-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
- Paperboy : Confessions of a Future Engineer: ISBN 0375413537 (0-375-41353-7)
The Pencilby Henry PetroskiISBN 057121763X (0-571-21763-X)
Softcover, Faber & Faber, Limited
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pencil : A History'Book summary:Like most other human artifacts, the common pencil, made and sold today by the millions, has a long and complex history. Henry Petroski, who combines a talent for fine writing with a deep knowledge of engineering and technological history, examines the story of the pencil, considering it not only as a thing in itself, but also as an exemplar of all things that are designed and manufactured.
Petroski ranges widely in time, discussing the writing technologies of antiquity. But his story really begins in the early modern period, when, in 1565, a Swiss naturalist first described the properties of the mineral that became known as graphite. Petroski traces the evolution of the pencil through the Industrial Revolution, when machine manufacture replaced earlier handwork. Along the way, he looks at some of pencil making's great innovators--including Henry David Thoreau, the famed writer, who worked in his father's pencil factory, inventing techniques for grinding graphite and experimenting with blends of lead, clay, and other ingredients to yield pencils of varying hardness and darkness. Petroski closes with a look at how pencils are made today--a still-imperfect technology that may yet evolve with new advances in materials and design. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineeringby Henry PetroskiISBN 0375700242 (0-375-70024-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Remaking the World: Adventures in Engineering'Book summary:Engineers, Henry Petroski observes, are sometimes their own worst enemies, at least so far as communicating their work to the general public is concerned. Some engineers, of course, have been exceptions. One of the unlikely heroes of Petroski's Remaking the World, an entertaining foray into some of engineering's finest (and, on occasion, less exalted) moments, is Karl August Rudolf Steinmetz, who combined a great talent for design and engineering with a keenly practiced flair for self-promotion. Another is Washington Gale Ferris, the inventor of the Ferris wheel, who concocted several dangerous eyesores before arriving at the design familiar to amusement-park patrons.
Successful at explaining themselves or not, engineers are largely responsible for the world as we know it, and Petroski examines their work to discuss how good design and technology combine to produce the desired results. That combination involves much trial and error, and, as Petroski writes, "artifacts from paper clips to steamships evolve by removing some real or perceived failure of their ancestors to achieve unqualified success." Drawing on examples from past and present, Petroski offers an up-close view of how engineers do their work, and his history is full of surprises and pleasures. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Designby Henry PetroskiISBN 0312806809 (0-312-80680-9)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design'Book summary:The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended. [via]
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The Toothpick: Technology and Cultureby Henry PetroskiISBN 030727943X (0-307-27943-X)
Softcover, Vintage Books
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