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A review by benburns
How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler by Ryan North
5.0
I always wanted to write this book: a guide to how you could recreate the inventions and progress of society if you had to do it all yourself. But I wouldn't have had the stamina to research it all - and I wouldn't have thought of such an ingenious premise, namely that this is a manual written for when your time machine breaks down and you're stranded in the past. And of course, Ryan North being who he is, he milks this premise for an incredibly high average of about 1 actual out-loud-laugh per page.
Read this book to learn things like how to create language, numbers, and logic; how to farm, breed livestock, and treat illnesses; how to tell what past time period you're stranded in based on what kind of dinosaurs, people, or constellations are around; how to develop increasingly interesting technologies like charcoal, kilns, waterwheels, glass, bikes, engines, and airplanes, all literally from scratch; and how to appreciate how embarrassing it is that it took humanity 200,000 years after we showed up - and 12,000 years after we invented farming - to come up with any of this stuff.
I now know way more about everything than I did before, and I had a great time learning it. Plus, if some sort of apocalypse or time travel mishap ever puts me in a situation where I have to rebuild civilization and its knowledge from scratch, I'll be in a much better spot.
Read this book to learn things like how to create language, numbers, and logic; how to farm, breed livestock, and treat illnesses; how to tell what past time period you're stranded in based on what kind of dinosaurs, people, or constellations are around; how to develop increasingly interesting technologies like charcoal, kilns, waterwheels, glass, bikes, engines, and airplanes, all literally from scratch; and how to appreciate how embarrassing it is that it took humanity 200,000 years after we showed up - and 12,000 years after we invented farming - to come up with any of this stuff.
I now know way more about everything than I did before, and I had a great time learning it. Plus, if some sort of apocalypse or time travel mishap ever puts me in a situation where I have to rebuild civilization and its knowledge from scratch, I'll be in a much better spot.