by Bill Fawcett (2009)
From the Publisher: A remarkable compendium of wild schemes, mad plans, crazy inventions, and truly glorious disasters. Every phenomenally bad idea seemed like a good idea to someone. How else can you explain the Ford Edsel or the sword pistol-absolutely absurd creations that should have never made it off the drawing board? It Looked Good on Paper gathers together the most flawed plans, half-baked ideas, and downright ridiculous machines throughout history that some second-rate Einstein decided to foist on an unsuspecting populace with the best and most optimistic intentions. Some failed spectacularly. Others fizzled after great expense. One even crashed on Mars. But every one of them at one time must have looked good on paper, including: The lead water pipes of Rome. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge-built to collapse. The Hubble telescope-the $2 billion scientific marvel that couldn't see. The Spruce Goose-Howard Hughes's airborne atrocity: big, expensive, slow, unstable, and made of wood. With more than thirty-five chapters full of incredibly insipid inventions, both infamous and obscure, It Looked Good on Paper is a mind-boggling, endlessly entertaining collection of fascinating failures.
Phil Patton
Trace the evolution of objects, products and related ideas in American ; things such as bridges, land yachts, the Pullman parlor car, Airstream trailor, selectric tylpewriter, Model T, DC-3, self-service, the jukebox, Lee jeans and many others.
Wayne Norton
From Mary and Bill...to Nelson and Phil...to Kami the Fish, apple crate labels and more...this new collection of writing and photographs covers a surprisingly broad range of topics. Local historian Wayne Norton presents some fresh perspectives, takes a second look at a few familiar themes and offers impressions of Kamloops as once it was - not so very long ago.
Jeremy Smith
"Discover the amazing world of ancient Egypt, and find out what life was like in this spectacular civilization. Everything from the lives of pharaohs through to art, cultute and daily life is included, and there are fascinating facts about the construction of the pyramids and archaeology today. Detailed images provide a fantastic visual guide making this book ideal for use at home and a school."--Back cover.
Stephen Van Dulken
Imagine your average day without zippers, airplanes, vacuum cleaners, without your personal stereo, without photocopiers. All of these devices were invented within the last hundred years and have since transformed our daily landscape. Drawing on the British Library's vast and comprehensive collection of patents, this handsomely illustrated book recounts the history of one hundred of the most significant inventions of the century, decade by decade. Many of these inventions changed the world, others radically changed our daily lives. By combining a brief history of each patent with a copy of the original -- and often entertaining -- patent application (the zipper is a "hookless fastener," the Post-It note an "inherently tacky, elastomeric polymer"), Inventing the 20th Century reveals the ways in which many of the most basic aspects of our material existence -- our clothes (nylon, Velcro), our leisure (Monopoly, Scrabble), our homes (Tupperware, teflon) -- have been revolutionized through specific objects. From the photocopier to the Slinky, from genetic fingerprinting to the Lava Lamp, from the ballpoint pen to the fuel cell, Inventing the 20th Century is an informative, illuminating window onto the technology of the twentieth century. - Jacket flap.