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From: Chris Buckley <alan@sabir.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Request for a recommendation.
Date: 4 Oct 2024 11:33:29 GMT
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On 2024-10-03, William Hyde <wthyde1953@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tony Nance wrote:
>> On 10/2/24 10:33 AM, William Hyde wrote:
>>>
>>> I am looking for a book which will interest a 12 year old kid who is 
>>> fascinated by things mechanical.
>>>
>>> The kind of kid who used to take clocks apart and put them back 
>>> together still working (when that was possible), build a telescope or 
>>> put together a radio, that sort of thing.
>>>
>>> I remember seeing such a book and wishing I'd had it when I was twelve 
>>> myself, but I don't recall the name or author.
>>>
>>> As for myself, that clock never worked again, so I'm not much of a 
>>> mentor here.
>>>
>>> William Hyde
>> 
>> My son is an engineer, and 4 of my nieces/nephews are also engineers, 
>> and when they were young, every one of them loved the book "The Way 
>> Things Work" by David Macaulay. I'm just a math guy, but I enjoyed 
>> flipping through it as well.
>> 
>> In looking for that title, I see he has also written a second book 
>> called "The New Way Things Work". I am unfamiliar with that book.
>
> That may well have been the book I mentioned above.
>
> Thanks for this, and all the other suggestions.
>
> William Hyde

We're old enough so I bet you were originally thinking of a much earlier
_The Way Things Work_ .  A very impressive book. I was disappointed in
the content of Macaulay's book in comparison, though his presentation
is better.  Macaulay's book is more engineering of everyday things
while this is more technology, so Macaulay's book would probably be
more targeted for your purposes, though there is plenty for an
engineer-to-be here.

The early version is unauthored; it calls itself "an illustrated
encyclopedia of technology". It was originally written in German in
1963 and translated/published in the US in 1967 which must have been a
major undertaking. It's 580 pages of small type, with 1/3 of it being
diagrams. It goes from pumps to juke-boxes to electron microscopes;
I'm surprised leafing through it for the first time in decades about
how much technology was already well-developed in 1963.

Chris