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Henry Petroski
Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of more than a dozen previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina, and Arrowsic, Maine. show more



Henry Petroski is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University. The author of more than a dozen previous books, he lives in Durham, North Carolina, and Arrowsic, Maine.

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Birth date: January 01, 1942
Category:
Nonfiction, Science
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Elentarri's Book Blog
Elentarri's Book Blog rated it 10 years ago
I got half way and had to put the book down before my brain melted. Some bits were interesting, but most of what I read was incredibly boring and overly verbose.
Steeped in Science, Submersed in Story
Two stars for the first half of the book, four stars for the 2nd, so that leaves me at 3 stars for the whole thing.Several of the early essays of this collection focus on the early history of the Royal Society and the philosophy of science. They're very academic, hard to read, and full of RS-relate...
nouveau
nouveau rated it 11 years ago
high 3, pushing the 4 and better than [b:The Book on the Bookshelf|95979|The Book on the Bookshelf|Henry Petroski|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320451642s/95979.jpg|1554589], but suffers from the same problem of apparently being a product of some writer-agent brainstorming session, "ah...
nouveau
nouveau rated it 11 years ago
competent rather than stunning, inclusive rather than unified, -- and written, most probably, under the simple rubric, 'a book about books has to get some readers, engineer Henry Petroski can write, but doesn't stun or immediately derive a rabid following. much of the book is concerned with bookshel...
nouveau
nouveau rated it 11 years ago
solid Harper-Collins / Vintage ebook from 1994; comparable to big six industry 'rewrite books' wherein doctorate or academic explains topic (in this case, engineering of household items) to layman's audience. paperclip, zipper, forks, wheelbarrow, you get the picture.perhaps not such as a smash hit...
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