NIGHTLY READING THREAD: Welcome to Edition #15 of #GMGreads. Every night through this weird time, I'm tweeting out a list of my five favorite books around a general theme—and a link to an indie bookstore where you can order them online....
As we enter a third week of quarantine and #GMGReads—and the world races to figure out a vaccine so we can reemerge—here are my favorite books about inventions. @sarvay has suggested @FountainBkstore in Richmond, so that's who I'm featuring tonight. Buy a book! Save a job!....
1) Dava Sobel's LONGITUDE remains one of the most interesting books I've ever read, a tale of a leap of logic and invention that seems so commonplace we forget how long it stymied humankind: fountainbookstore.com/book/978080271…
2) Jacob Soll's RECKONING, a surprisingly interesting history of accounting (yes, accounting!), will convince you that double-entry bookkeeping is one of the most important inventions of all time: fountainbookstore.com/book/978046503…
3) Richard Rhodes's THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB is a tour du force of physics, history, and narrative reporting: fountainbookstore.com/book/978145167…
4) Annie Jacobsen's (@AnnieJacobsen) OPERATION PAPERCLIP, the story of how Nazi scientists with horrible pasts helped the US win the space race, will leave you wondering whether the moral trade-offs were worth it: fountainbookstore.com/book/978031622…
5) Last summer, I chanced into reading David McCullough's WRIGHT BROTHERS and found myself amazed at how much of the story of flight I didn't know (France was really that important?!!?): fountainbookstore.com/book/978147672…
Those are tonight's #GMGreads. What great books have you read about inventions and inventors? I'll order one of your suggestions from
@FountainBkstore myself. What are your other favorite indie bookstores? Share! #avidreadersunite
@FountainBkstore myself. What are your other favorite indie bookstores? Share! #avidreadersunite
