I came across this title while researching the parallels between traditional professional engineering and systems engineering. Petroski makes a compelling case for us to formally study our failures in systems engineering - not for laying blame, but in order to continually improve our processes, assumptions, beliefs, methods, and thinking patterns. Using case studies from bridge building, ship building, and other construction feats, Petroski show us how errors in scalability, design changes, selective use of history, logic, and human factors can lead to disasterous consequences. If you care about public safety and want to see any industry progress to a real level of professionalism, read and study this work.

"Paperboy", by Henry Petroski is another one of his intelligent, friendly, winning books.Petroski, of "The Pencil", and "The Evolution of Useful Things,"wrote about his family's move from the city to the suburbs in the 1950s.However, there's more- how he had difficulty finding a place in a school that would provide him with the challenge and stimulation he needed, the comfort of family, the joy of friendship, and the challenges of the physical world.Petroski is one of the great scientist=writers, like Lewis Thomas, Primo Levi, and Stephen Jay Gould. However, Petroski is a mapper of the world of bridges, buildings, and the one who ddeply notices pencils, paperclips. and how to fold a newspaper.This is a good book, and would be a great book for many men- Father's day, birthdays, high school graduations--And, a great gift for women, too

This is a great collection of American treasured landmarks and items. It serves as both a historical review and a great presentation piece.

Petroski is more than a little obsessive. He has the ability to collect an astounding amount of information on truly arcane topics. He is not necessarily the most riveting author, though. It comes as no surprise to see the number of engineers who rave over his books and the lack of attention from non-engineers.

Personally, I dabble on the knife's edge between the technical and non-technical, so perhaps that was why I was able to read this book through. I'm almost embarassed to admit to burning curiousity about many issues associated with the pencil. Why are they yellow, why are they cedar, who was Eberhard (and does the name refer to the longevity of the point?), and why don't old men sharpen them with pocket knives any longer?

This book answered all of those questions and more that I hadn't come close to anticipating. While there is certainly plenty of information to satisfy the curiousity of a pencil enthusiast, the book brings a deeper level of meaning. Performing such a a detailed examination of a common product provides insight into human character and economics. It provides understanding of why businesses flourish or fail, and how that affects the mundane details of our everyday lives.

Certainly, anyone with an interest in the subject matter would be entertained by this book--it is a veritable information orgy on the subject of pencils. However, I also recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of technology--how it develops, why product categories are made the way they are, and how society appropriates these products and adapts itelf to them. "Everyday Things" was too boring to me to complete, but I read "Pencils" cover to cover. Perhaps there is more to be learned through detailed research into one specific and common technology than there is through the broad brush approach of "Things."

I loved this book. No surprise, because several years ago I became aware of the differences in the way pencils write. I picked up a great pencil as a giveaway from a community college. It felt like satin gliding along the paper. I kept it tucked safely inside my desk where my students could not get it. The first of the book is thought provoking as it discusses how the pencil has been ignored. This book and the EVOLUTION OF USEFUL THINGS, causes one to pause and consider the important, overlooked items of our daily lives. Maybe a reader is left with a good life lesson. THE BOOK ON THE BOOKSHELF is my next read. One thing for sure, you have to have a bit of an engineering streak in you to hang on every word. Get ready for strange looks when you answer the question, "What are you reading now?"

What a suprise! Who could think that such a simple object could have such an interesting history? Henry Petroski, as in his other books, weaves a tale that entertains and amazes in this history of the pencil, looking at both its historical progress and technical progress. Worth the read, no matter whether you are interested in engineering or not!

I am a great fan of Henry Petroski, engineering professor and author of such minor classics as The Pencil and The Evolution of Useful Things. Perhaps it is because of these high expectations that I was so disappointed by Engineer of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and the Spanning of America. In the end, Petroski seems much better at writing about engineering artifacts - pencils, paper clips, or, in this book, bridges - than the makers of those artifacts. Much of Petroski's "biography" here seemed nothing less than mere formula: you could almost see him filling in his computer template for "name, date and place of birth, school, mentor, etc." each time a new engineer was introduced. Further, he did not even attempt to vary the template from person to person, so that the repetitive style becomes unmistakable. This book is worth reading insofar as it provides a history of the bridges themselves, and the limits of engineering technique and imagination.

If you want to learn more about the best American bridge designers and their bridges, this is the book for you! In particular it has a very good chapter on Steinman (the designer of the Mackinac Bridge).

This book will tell you the stories and politics behind each one of the designers featured and their bridges.

Engineers of Dreams is a book I've read several times because it involves me in the history behind some of engineerings greatest triumphs... and failures. The story of great engineers with various combinations of vision and practicality, as well as perseverence in all cases, makes for a kind of drama. In some cases, we know how the story ended, with a great bridge we can see. In other cases, the story ends with a wreck and bodies. From the story of the San Francisco Bay Bridge to the story of the first Quebec Bridge, this book itself spans a range of ability and satisfaction that is a joy to perceive.

Want to know the facts behind the everyday things we use? Invention by Design, by Henry Petroski, is a very interesting book. It explains how items used by people daily were thought of and created. This book explains how familiar items such as paper clips, aluminum cans, zippers, mechanical pencils, bridges, buildings, and more were constructed. Invention by Design also describes how certain inventions and constructions were improved though the years by different inventors and engineers.
I thought this book was very good and interesting, especially since I enjoy studying and learning about mechanical, civil, and architectural engineering. I would recommend this book to anyone, but someone with no interest in engineering may not find this book to be very enjoyable. On a ten point scale I would give Invention by Design an eight. I give it an eight because some objects that Petroski describes are not very complex, and in my opinion not worth discussing. That made certain parts of this book a little boring.

As an aficionado of the fine "history of technology" works by Petrosky, I picked up & devoured this volume eagerly. The first 1/2 of the book is as interesting & well written as any of his previous books for the lay reader. A marvellous combination of the history of writing, literacy, books & book storage. I felt the book bogged down substantially in the second 1/2, which focused on much more modern issues like trends in the construction of libraries. So I ended up skimming that part much of the time. I highly recommend the book -- esp. the paperback -- for its first half. $12 isn't too much to spend for just that part of the entertainment/education value of Petrosky.

This is an interesting and informative (and a little obsessive) book that traces the progression of the how books were (and are) stored. It covers the subject from the storage of scrolls to current day, modern movable library shelving.

An interesting read for someone obsessed with books.

There is a certain kind of personality that will absolutely adore this book, although it seems to have flummoxed some of the author's loyalists. (It is not a treatise on engineering and design.) The title is very much literal: This is a book about the history and evolution of that simple piece of furniture, the bookshelf. That seems almost comical--like /Seinfeld/'s coffee table book about coffee tables--and most people to whom I have described the book's appeal have understandably laughed. But the bookshelf per se is only one aspect of Petroski's undertaking here. This is really a book about books--the peculiar allure of the written word, the history of publishing, and the mania that affects those who strangely view books as metaphysically more valuable than the sum of all knowledge contained therein. In all of these subjects Petroski's book is rich, but I imagine it will appeal most to those who understand that mania.

Some of the author's observations regarding the bizarre obsessive-compulsiveness of book-collectors are humorous and even poetic in their tendency to articulate beautifully the quotidian chores of library maintenance.P>The beef of the book is in the middle chapters, which is an engaging and fast-paced history of manuscripts, books, publishing, and of course the bookshelf's evolution in service of these changing technologies. Numerous woodcuts and illustrations are included, although the text begins to drag in places where Petroski wastes words needlessly describing the contents of the graphic in front of us. These chapters contain a history nearly as intriguing as Nicholas Basbanes's highly recommended and still-in-progress trilogy on the history and allure of the printed word, and are far more concise for those wont to balk at such mammoth volumes. Those whose interests tend more towards the artisanal aspects of printing and bookmaking can supplement Petroski's text with any of the various visually oriented undertakings of this subject, e.g. Joseph Blumenthal's /Art of the Printed Book, 1455-1955/.

The last chapter and the appendix return to the acute observational musings of the first chapter. The perhaps unintentionally hilarious appendix on the elusiveness of the perfect system of book-categorization cites more of the problems encountered by the irredeemably meticulous. If thoughts of a paperback amidst a row of hardcovers or a short book in a tall space can agonize you like an unmade bed, this chapter was written for you. More arcane systems are discussed, such as shelving books according to color, sentimental value, new vs. used, read vs. unread, and so on, each section noting more of the little disruptions in harmony that make keeping books such an eternal work in progress.

This is a collection of articles written for Petrowski's monthly column in American Scientist magazine. Many are brief biographies of 19th-century engineers; a (very) few look (very) briefly at particular pieces of historical engineering (an article on the Ferris wheel is probably the best); others are ruminations on such hazards of the engineering practice as the stress that keeps them up at night and their failure to be awarded Nobel prizes. These seem quite satisfactory articles for a magazine column but they are slender stuff for a book. And Petroski's tendency to return to the same subjects, pardonable in a monthly column, becomes repetitive when the columns are collected. All but die-hard Petroski fans can skip this one

... but I'm getting a copy for my Dad the engineer. I enjoyed this despite my very soft background in the hard sciences: an English degree. Petroski sometimes leads you down a road with an abrupt ending, but most times it's a pleasant journey and he leads the reader around a few curves, too.

Remaking the World should be sought out by any and all fans of engineering, laymen included. Anyone who has ever been mesmerized and enthralled by great feats of construction needs to take part in Petroski's stories behind these great feats. A thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable book.

This book has an interesting goal: To explain engineering failures. But instead of an in-depth failure analysis of the Hyatt hotel, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and buses, the reader gets the same simple ideas repeated again and again. The Hyatt hotel disaster is mentioned in detail three times before its chapter. That chapter just retells the story and adds little value or insight. This book needs better organization and more real detail and in-depth analysis.

I have to admit that I am a fan of the author's works, so this review may be biased.

I agree with previously posted reviews here that this work is repetative and covers engineering failures at a very high level. However, I believe that this is an important work for those that do any type of complex design or work with designs.

I am not an engineer -- I'm an information systems professional who believes that professionals should be able to review failures, even those of other professions, to better address risk in future projects. The author does a great job of introducing this concept in this book's preface:

"...I believe that an understanding and appreciation of engineers and engineering can be gotten without an engineering or technical education.... I believe that the concept of failure - mechanical and structural failure in the context of this discussion - is central to unerstanding engineering, for engineering design has as its first and foremost objective the obviation of failure. Thus the colossal disasters that do occur are ultimately failures of design, but the lessons learned form those disasters can do more to advance engineering knowledge than all the successful machines and structures in the world."

Take the word engineering out of the above quote and insert any profession there and the quote still works.

I found particularly erie the background on the Comet, the first commercial jet aircraft. In the the chapter on Forensic Engineering, Petroski tells of a early Nevil Shute novel, _No Highway_, in which Shute tells a very, very similar _fictional_ story about a failed commercail aircraft called the Reindeer. I did not know that Shute was an aero engineer working for de Haviland at the same time as the Comet design. Shute is best known for his work _On the Beach_.

Of interest to other information systems professions is the chapter entitled From Slide Rull to Computer: Forgetting How It Used to be Done.

The bibliography of 11 pages may also be of interest to anyone researching this subject.

This Petroski work is a good introduction in to his other works, as well as the topic of failure analysis....especially if you aren't an engineer.

I am not really sure how I came across this book. I think it was by following relevant links on Amazon. Anyway I bought this as well as The Evolution of Useful Things at the same time. I found this a very insightful reading in light of my occupation as a software engineer. Several of my coworkers recently had an email conversation regarding the quailty of software engineered products vs. "real" engineer's and their feats of construction, bridges, airplanes and buildings all things that Petroski covers in details.

Some additional thoughts on how structural engineering is different from Enterprise Application Software Engineering:

1. --In general software is unlimited, where as Structural Engineering has natural laws. Higher level Patterns are pretty constant, where as within the created construct of software they are reinvited (Object Patterns, EJB Patterns)
2. --structures have the added requirement of no death, where as Enterprise Software only has revenue associated with it, not as powerful a motivator as death.
3. --software is interactive with behavior, where as a bridge is a bridge

http://www.niffgurd.com/mark/books/2002.html#eng

Mr. Petroski labors at too much length to describe how several common items became what they are today as a result of the design process and subsequent evolution as a result of engineers' continual desires for improvment. This exercise is less successful than earlier works which focused on the engineering process and used infrastructure projects such as buildings and bridges for examples.

Lay readers, and even engineers, would be better served by reading "Remaking the World" or "To Engineer Is Human" which provide more insight into the engineering process and which are more relevant and connected to the common structures and objects that we take for granted every day.

Petroski's field is design, but his take on it is the history of design rather than the "science" of design as Donald Norman (of The Design of Everyday Things fame). Although their approach is different, the two men share some of the same insights into how and why objects are the way they were. But where Norman's philosophy is that an object can be designed to be "better," Petroski feels that an object will always be less than perfect. His theory, in part, is that because most objects have multiple purposes, the object can not perform any single task perfectly. This idea of the competition of purposes is best illustrated from the book by Petroski's examination of eating utensils. The perfect utensil would be one that could cut and lift food to the mouth for eating. But knifes that cut have difficulty in lifting, forks are almost useless with a soup, and a spoon doesn't cut well. By showing us the evolution of the flatware selection (which remains imperfect), Petroski gives weight to his theory.

But I'm not wholly convinced. Perhaps it's because I read Norman first that I want to defend him. I want to believe that objects can be bettered--an interface can be easier to use, etc. The difference between Norman and Petroski is also one of style. Norman's prose is almost light weight compared to the dense, multi-syllabic approach used by Petroski, and Norman wasn't afraid to use terms and ideas that were not in lay usage. It could be that Norman's short columnar structure breaks up the duty of trying to convey so much information that his is more readable prose. It could also be that Petroski likes the language of academia, even when it begins to obfuscate. From the design standpoint, both authors are worthwhile. It is important to see specific examples of real world solutions to design problems to come up with ideas for our own designs, be it a fork, a building, or software.

Things get improved because in their current form, they do not work properly. Henry Petroski's book, The Evolution of Useful Things, traces the development of objects in our everyday life, including detailed histories of the development of the staple, the zipper, silverware, and hand tools. The book is interesting, although Petroski does tend to shy away from offering a theory of development, and instead offers a conjectures about how things might have developed. He explains, but he does not offer a theory or an argument that explains everything. Overall, though, a goos book, well researched, well illustrated, and interesting on many levels.