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noodle0603 's review for:
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World
by Simon Winchester
I picked this book because I wanted something rather dry and "detached" from the modern world and emotions of the COVID pandemic. This book reminded me why I like Simon Winchester, which is that he writes nonfiction without that stereotypical smarmy pop-sci angle and over focus on the author and the author's feelings/life etc. Bless him for that. This book basically described a series of objects that were engineered at greater and greater precision, and how this impacted the world. I don't totally remember the full order, but it was something like guns, cars, airplanes, satellites, lenses/telescope, watches, computer chips. He would often start with a modern event, like the 2010 Qantas airplane debacle, and then go back and describe the development of the jet engine and the level of precision that was required (and went wrong!). I actually learned some things and rather enjoyed listening to the book. It also functioned perfectly as a distraction from COVID.