Book Reviews
To Forgive Design
Published 05/09/2012
“What should surprise us, really, is not that failures occur but that they do not do so more often,” writes failure analyst Henry Petroski in this sequel to “To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design.”
A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics
Published 05/05/2012
Written in the style of a travel guide, historian Neil Faulkner allows the reader to imagine what it would have been like to attend the Olympics in 388 B.C.
Hitler
Published 05/05/2012
A.N. Wilson’s biography of Hitler addresses what the author describes as “the peculiar mystery of the Hitler phenomenon.” That is, how a man with little energy and almost no skills was able to dominate European history for more than a decade.
You Are Good at Things
Published 03/23/2012
A quirky celebration of skills that don’t pay the bills.
Rez Life
Published 03/05/2012
A tour of reservation life and Native American history, aimed at “people [who] will go a lifetime without ever knowing an Indian or spending any time on an Indian reservation.”
Fool Me Twice
Published 02/26/2012
The challenges we face revolve around science and technology—and why we’re not prepared to meet them.
Wendy Northcutt, the Darwin Awards
The End is Near, No?
No Great Shakes
