Books About Inventions & Inventors

This week our kids’ after school club, the S.T.E.A.M.punks, explores the T in STEAM - Technology, that is. We’re looking at some inventions that helped humans communicate with each other throughout (fairly recent) history. To celebrate our look at technology and inventions, let’s take a look at some great books for grown-ups that highlight inventions - famous and not-so famous - that we have here in Arrowhead Library System. The titles in bold are in the Eager Free Public Library collection, but you can order any of these titles through RockCat, the library’s catalog.

• The Turk: the life and times of the famous eighteenth century chess playing machine by Tom Standage (New York: Walker & Co, 2002)
• Before we went wireless: David Edward Hughes, FRS: his life, inventions, and discoveries (1829 - 1900) by Ivor Hughes and David Ellis Evans (Bennington, VT: Images from the Past, 2011)
• Mr. Lincoln’s T-mails: the untold story of how Abraham Lincoln used the telegraph to win the Civil War by Tom Wheeler (New York: Collins, 2006)
• The Telephone Gambit: chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s secret by Seth Shulman (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2008)
• The Apple Revolution: the real story of how Steve Jobs and the crazy ones took over the world by Luke Dormehl (London: Virgin Books, 2013)
• Gadget Nation: a journey through the eccentric world of invention by Steve Greenberg (New York: Sterling, 2007)
• The Spirit of Invention: the story of the thinkers, creators, and dreamers who formed our nation by Julie M. Fenster (New York: HarperCollins, 2009)
• Splendidly Unreasonable Inventors: the lives, loves and deaths of 30 pioneers who changed the world by Jeremy Coller with Christine Chamberlain (New York: Overlook Press, 2009)

Enjoy one of these thought-provoking and inspiring histories today!