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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
I agree with the other reviewers who said that this book has a lot of fascinating information, but I couldn't enjoy it because the writing is so dry and stodgy.
This is a history of bookshelves, and how people have been organizing books since the time we had books as scrolls. His main argument is that the book shelf evolved as people needed better ways to store and arrange books; it came forth out of necessity. The idea is an intriguing one, and there is a ...
I really tried to like this book. The topic sounded very interesting, and as a writer who still does write by hand, I figured it would be interesting. However, Petroski simply does not know how to write or make an engaging narrative. Every time you think he is going to get to the history of the penc...
If I hadn't worked in a university library for 4 years, I might have found the book a bit more enjoyable; as such, I would not recommend this book to biblioholics, as you probably well versed in bibliohistory already.
Perhaps I rate this too highly. Problem is I love technology and its issues and Petroski is one of my favorite writers on civil engineering. On the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, May 27, 1987, almost 1,000,000 people showed up to celebrate and to walk across a bridge that was desig...
Important: Our sites use cookies.
We use the information stored using cookies and similar technologies for advertising and statistics purposes.
Stored data allow us to tailor the websites to individual user's interests.
Cookies may be also used by third parties cooperating with BookLikes, like advertisers, research companies and providers of multimedia applications.
You can choose how cookies are handled by your device via your browser settings.
If you choose not to receive cookies at any time, BookLikes will not function properly and certain services will not be provided.
For more information, please go to our Privacy Policy.
Log in with Facebook 
