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abbigator's review against another edition
4.0
This book, while entertaining and educational, got a little tedious. It was nice that he described the diagrams out loud for the audiobook listener, but it’s definitely intended to be read.
pemdas97's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
jiggityjog's review against another edition
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.75
Once I got past my gripes about this author playing fast & loose with some of the scientific & engineering principles discussed in this books that I am a bit more familiar with than most people, I was able to really enjoy this book for what it is & boy howdy, did I ever! I love this author’s humor & wit + I got to learn a lot of things that I didn’t already know about a wide breadth of topics particularly just how painstakingly slow the undirected development of civilization as we now it, was.
I mean, this guy wrote a chapter explaining just about every flavor of religion & philosophy solely in terms of giving high fives that I will probably use as a reference for the remainder of my life because it was that funny & memorable.
I mean, this guy wrote a chapter explaining just about every flavor of religion & philosophy solely in terms of giving high fives that I will probably use as a reference for the remainder of my life because it was that funny & memorable.
becadreads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
twitchyredpen's review against another edition
5.0
This book was an absolute delight to read. It's full of things that I didn't know I didn't know (sails are different shapes for a reason!), things I had underestimated the importance of (spinning wheels!), things I never thought about (where does lye come from in the first place, for soap making?), and snarky comments about things that humanity forgot over and over (vitamin C, hello) or took an embarrassingly long time to figure out (wheelbarrows, jeez).
The book is well-ordered and thoroughly indexed and annotated. It includes useful tables, diagrams, and cheat sheets, in addition to flow charts for determining your approximate place in time and on humanity's tech tree.
Other than "How to Leave Notes Into the Future, So Future Time Travelers Can Come Rescue You," I can't think of any one book I'd rather have with me if I were stuck in the past.
(That book possibly doesn't exist/wouldn't be useful because of the whole "this benefits a different version of you" explanation of what happens if you give your past-self lottery numbers, described in the rental time machine FAQ before the "repair manual" begins.)
Included things I would not have thought about including: Timekeeping (low on the tech tree, but vital for science), Trigonometry (same), how to design a not-stupid horse collar, art things like perspective and dyes.
Not-included things that I think would be important: More about hunting and trapping instead of just dismissing it as inferior to agriculture (farming takes time and you're hungry now; you can't domesticate something without catching it first), How To Not Get Joan-Of-Arc'd For All Your Amazing Knowledge, some thoughts about plastic alternatives (He gets on us over fossil fuels, so introducing those millet-based spoons or even less-bad plastics decades earlier wouldn't be out of place)
The book is well-ordered and thoroughly indexed and annotated. It includes useful tables, diagrams, and cheat sheets, in addition to flow charts for determining your approximate place in time and on humanity's tech tree.
Other than "How to Leave Notes Into the Future, So Future Time Travelers Can Come Rescue You," I can't think of any one book I'd rather have with me if I were stuck in the past.
(That book possibly doesn't exist/wouldn't be useful because of the whole "this benefits a different version of you" explanation of what happens if you give your past-self lottery numbers, described in the rental time machine FAQ before the "repair manual" begins.)
Included things I would not have thought about including: Timekeeping (low on the tech tree, but vital for science), Trigonometry (same), how to design a not-stupid horse collar, art things like perspective and dyes.
Not-included things that I think would be important: More about hunting and trapping instead of just dismissing it as inferior to agriculture (farming takes time and you're hungry now; you can't domesticate something without catching it first), How To Not Get Joan-Of-Arc'd For All Your Amazing Knowledge, some thoughts about plastic alternatives (He gets on us over fossil fuels, so introducing those millet-based spoons or even less-bad plastics decades earlier wouldn't be out of place)