to every action there is an equal and oposite reaction
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My grandfather spent the war years designing switchgear for G.E.C in Manchester. He carried a five-inch slide rule in the breast pocket of his tweed jacket and a well-stocked tobacco tin at the hip. He was good at partial differential equations but couldn't change a light bulb. He would have been very irritated by someone who mixes up Newton's first and third laws as Mr. Spufford does.
For someone who clearly admires the pared down aesthetic of British engineering at it's best Spufford's prose style is surprisingly flowery. Some readers may well be left feeling they have bought a pink Cadillac when what they really wanted was a Lotus Seven. Having said that I still enjoyed the book, read it in a couple of days and found the stories interesting, informative, amusing and sometimes touching. The hard core techie will be disappointed the book does not contain more science but the general reader (and I suspect more particularly the British general reader) will be be thoroughly entertained.
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As good as Bryson
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A series of essays on British technological achievements may sound rather dry but this throughly-researched and very well-written boook makes an absorbing and entertaining read. Spufford has the same knack as Bill Bryson (in 'A short history of nearly everything') of thoroughly grasping the important points of the six areas that he treats, and distilling them into witty and informative tales for the non-specialist. The story of the human genome project, and how British intervention narrowly prevented it from falling completely into the hands of a private company, makes as good a thriller as you will read anywhere; the chapter about Beagle 2 has moments of laugh-out-loud comedy. I got it as a 'stocking filler' this Christmas and couldn't put it down.
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A very good example of how not to write a book.
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The subject matter of backroom boys is excellent and the book is both informative and in some places funny, I could have realy enjoyed it except for the constant wafle, blah blah and repeats. In the end - no before the end (chapter five) I had to give in, I just could'nt take more...
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boring over wordy style - couldn't finish the book in the end as I ran out of patience with it
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A potentially good book spoiled through lack of editing. The stories are good but badly told. The author spends too much time getting on with it and not enough time moving the story on. Each chapter starts well
but then drags. The most dissapointing chapter being the one on the human gnenone project. For good 'can't put it down' techie books try, Longitude, The Calendar, The Code Book, Fermats Last Theorem etc.
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Excellent
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This is a wonderful book that captures the affection and admiration we have for excpetionally clever people working with limited resources but achieving so much. I was nearly in tears at the end of the DNA chapter.
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