Inventions

 

The next Genre Reading Group meeting will be Tuesday, November 24 at 6:30pm on Zoom and the topic up for discussion is fantasy fiction. (register here: https://emmetoneal.libnet.info/event/3502050) 

This very broad category can include everything from alternate histories to paranormal romance to tales of adventure with dragons and elves.  I’m happy to help you select something if the choice seems daunting so don’t hesitate to reach out for assistance!  Here is a link to a basic catalog search for “fantasy fiction”: https://bit.ly/2HJf1pm

Last night, we met to chat about inventions and inventors and that conversation spread out to innovators, social psychology, television and movies, and more!

Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything by Lydia Kang

Looking back with fascination, horror, and not a little dash of dark, knowing humor, Quackery recounts the lively, at times unbelievable, history of medical misfires and malpractices. Ranging from the merely weird to the outright dangerous, here are dozens of outlandish, morbidly hilarious “treatments”—conceived by doctors and scientists, by spiritualists and snake oil salesmen (yes, they literally tried to sell snake oil)—that were predicated on a range of cluelessness, trial and error, and straight-up scams. With vintage illustrations, photographs, and advertisements throughout, Quackery seamlessly combines macabre humor with science and storytelling to reveal an important and disturbing side of the ever-evolving field of medicine.

House of Invention: The Secret Life of Everyday Products by David Lindsay

Recounts the origins of articles found in each room of a house, from the bathroom to the garage, and describes the personalities responsible for twenty-one everyday objects.

Tesla: Inventor of the Modern by Richard Munson

Drawing on letters, technological notebooks, and other primary sources, Munson pieces together the magnificently bizarre personal life and mental habits of the enigmatic inventor whose most famous inventions were the product of a mind fueled by both the humanities and sciences―Tesla conceived the induction motor while walking through a park and reciting Goethe’s Faust. Clear, authoritative, and highly readable, Tesla takes into account all the phases of Tesla’s remarkable life and career.

The Current War (feature film)

This is the epic story of the cutthroat competition that literally lit up the modern world. Benedict Cumberbatch is Thomas Edison, the celebrity inventor on the verge of bringing electricity to Manhattan with his new DC technology. On the eve of triumph, his plans are upended by charismatic businessman George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon), who believes he and his partner, Nikolai Tesla (Nicholas Hoult), have a superior idea for how to rapidly electrify America: with AC current. As Edison and Westinghouse grapple for who will power the nation, they spark one of the first and greatest corporate feuds in American history.

The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

From Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novel—based on actual events—about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America.

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history—and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?

The Reckoning by David Halberstam

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fifties and TheColdest Winter, and filled with intriguing vignettes about Henry Ford, Lee Iacocca, and other visionary industrial leaders, The Reckoning remains a powerful and enlightening story about manufacturing in the modern age, and how America fell woefully behind.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Blessed with enormous talents and the energy and ambition to go with them, Franklin was a statesman, author, inventor, printer, and scientist. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and later was involved in negotiating the peace treaty with Britain that ended the Revolutionary War. He also invented bifocals, a stove that is still manufactured, a water-harmonica, and the lightning rod. Franklin's extraordinary range of interests and accomplishments are brilliantly recorded in his Autobiography, considered one of the classics of the genre. 

Covering his life up to his prewar stay in London as representative of the Pennsylvania Assembly, this charming self-portrait recalls Franklin's boyhood, his determination to achieve high moral standards, his work as a printer, experiments with electricity, political career, experiences during the French and Indian War, and more. Related in an honest, open, unaffected style, this highly readable account offers a wonderfully intimate glimpse of the Founding Father sometimes called "the wisest American."

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson (adapted for a doc film of the same name available from the library and streaming on Hoopla, Kanopy, and Amazon Prime)

In his trademark style, Johnson examines unexpected connections between seemingly unrelated fields: how the invention of air-conditioning enabled the largest migration of human beings in the history of the species—to cities such as Dubai or Phoenix, which would otherwise be virtually uninhabitable; how pendulum clocks helped trigger the industrial revolution; and how clean water made it possible to manufacture computer chips. Accompanied by a major six-part television series on PBS, How We Got to Now is the story of collaborative networks building the modern world, written in the provocative, informative, and engaging style that has earned Johnson fans around the globe.

When Science Goes Wrong: Twelve Tales from the Dark Side of Discovery by Simon LeVay

Brilliant scientific successes have helped shape our world, and are always celebrated. However, for every victory, there are no doubt numerous little-known blunders. Neuroscientist Simon LeVay brings together a collection of fascinating, yet shocking, stories of failure from recent scientific history in When Science Goes Wrong.

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink

In When, Pink distills cutting-edge research and data on timing and synthesizes them into a fascinating, readable narrative packed with irresistible stories and practical takeaways that give readers compelling insights into how we can live richer, more engaged lives.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

Provocative, rigorous, and engrossing, Range makes a compelling case for actively cultivating inefficiency. Failing a test is the best way to learn. Frequent quitters end up with the most fulfilling careers. The most impactful inventors cross domains rather than deepening their knowledge in a single area. As experts silo themselves further while computers master more of the skills once reserved for highly focused humans, people who think broadly and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives will increasingly thrive.

To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel Pink

To Sell Is Human offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in Drive and A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it's no longer "Always Be Closing"), explains why extraverts don't make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an "off-ramp" for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.

Along the way, Pink describes the six successors to the elevator pitch, the three rules for understanding another's perspective, the five frames that can make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more. The result is a perceptive and practical book--one that will change how you see the world and transform what you do at work, at school, and at home.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (doc film)

What do the most ravishingly beautiful actress of the 1930s and 40s and the inventor whose concepts were the basis of cell phone and Bluetooth technology have in common? They were both Hedy Lamarr, the glamour icon whose ravishing visage was the inspiration for Snow White and Cat Woman and a technological trailblazer who perfected a secure radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes during WWII.

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Connections (TV show) (Available on Kanopy)

As the Sherlock Holmes of science, James Burke tracks through 12,000 years of history for the clues that lead us to eight great life changing inventions-the atom bomb, telecommunications, the computer, the production line, jet aircraft, plastics, rocketry and television. Burke postulates that such changes occur in response to factors he calls triggers, some of them seemingly unrelated. These have their own triggering effects, causing change in totally unrelated fields as well. And so the connections begin...

Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan

I have been standing on the side of life, watching it float by. I want to swim in the river. I want to feel the current.

So writes Mamah Borthwick Cheney in her diary as she struggles to justify her clandestine love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. Four years earlier, in 1903, Mamah and her husband, Edwin, had commissioned the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.

Rosenbaum House (located at 601 Riverview Drive Florence, Alabama 35630)

“Architecture critic Peter Blake wrote in 1960 that “during the 1930s, Frank Lloyd Wright built four structures of a beauty unexcelled in America before or since.” Three of those are Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Administrative Building, and Taliesin West. The fourth was the Usonian prototype of which the Rosenbaum House is one of the purest examples.”

Taliesen West (located in Scottsdale, Arizona)

Taliesin West is a UNESCO World Heritage site and National Historic Landmark nestled in the desert foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Who Killed the Electric Car? (doc film)

It begins with a solemn funeral…for a car. By the end of Chris Paine's lively and informative documentary, the idea doesn't seem quite so strange. As narrator Martin Sheen notes, "They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline." Paine proceeds to show how this unique vehicle came into being and why General Motors ended up reclaiming its once-prized creation less than a decade later. 

He begins 100 years ago with the original electric car. By the 1920s, the internal-combustion engine had rendered it obsolete. By the 1980s, however, car companies started exploring alternative energy sources, like solar power. This, in turn, led to the late, great battery-powered EV1. Throughout, Paine deftly translates hard science and complex politics, such as California's Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate, into lay person's terms (director Alex Gibney, Oscar-nominated for Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, served as consulting producer). 

And everyone gets the chance to have their say: engineers, politicians, protesters, and petroleum spokespeople--even celebrity drivers, like Peter Horton, Alexandra Paul, and a wild man beard-sporting Mel Gibson. But the most persuasive participant is former Saturn employee Chelsea Sexton. Promoting the benefits of the EV1 was more than a job to her, and she continues to lobby for more environmentally friendly options. Sexton provides the small ray of hope Paine's film so desperately needs. Who Killed the Electric Car? is, otherwise, a tremendously sobering experience. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash (doc film)

While the previous eco-doc Who Killed the Electric Car? spent some time on the world's oil crisis, A Crude Awakening (formerly OilCrash) builds an entire film around the subject. Swiss journalist Basil Gelpke and Irish filmmaker Ray McCormack have constructed their narrative in a conventional manner, alternating between talking heads, archival footage, and modern-day material, but the addition of several pieces by Phillip Glass is an artful touch (and evokes his work on 1988's The Thin Blue Line). 

Throughout, a diverse array of experts from the U.S., Azerbaijan, Venezuela, and other countries explain how the 20th century became addicted to "the blood of the dinosaurs," and why contemporary society needs to change course. As attorney/activist Matthew David Savinar puts it, "Oil is our God." As Stanford professor Terry Lynn Karl adds, "More and more oil is going to come from less and less stable places...places that actually challenge the taking of oil in the first place." One of the more chilling revelations concerns the discrepancy between the reserves oil-producing nations claim they possess and the actual amount. 

These padded estimates allow them to drill with impunity, leading to an abundance of wealth in the short term and cataclysmic consequences once they've depleted their supply of this non-renewable resource. A Crude Awakening isn't exactly a day-brightener, but Gelpke and McCormack are comprehensive and impartial in their inquiry, which makes for an informative examination of a vitally important subject. Extras include extended interviews with four participants and bonus chapter Petrostates. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Jazz (Ken Burns doc series)

The story, sound, and soul of a nation come together in the most American of art forms: jazz. Ken Burns celebrates the music’s soaring achievements, from its origin in blues and ragtime through swing, bebop, and fusion.

Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins

A modern, Southern re-invention of The Maltese Falcon, Crossroad Blues wins noir fans with its nod to the masters and thrilled readers with a wild ride along Highway 61. It’s here that we first meet Nick Travers, an ex-New Orleans Saint turned Tulane University blues historian. Nick searches for the lost recordings of 1930s bluesman Robert Johnson—and a missing colleague—and finds trouble at every turn. The cast of characters includes a red-headed siren, an Elvis-worshipping hitman, Johnson’s ghost, and the Mississippi Delta itself. A decade later, Crossroad Blues still sings.

Doctor Dogs: How Our Best Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine by Maria Goodavage

In this groundbreaking book, Goodavage brings us behind the scenes of cutting-edge science at top research centers, and into the lives of people whose well-being depends on their devoted, highly skilled personal MDs (medical dogs). With her signature wit and passion, Goodavage explores how doctor dogs are becoming our happy allies in the fight against dozens of physical and mental conditions.

Trouble Waters: A Mississippi River Story (doc film)

The Emmy Award-winning Troubled Waters: A Mississippi River Story tells the story of the unintended yet severe consequences of farming along the Mississippi, and the efforts being taken to reverse this damage.

Chernobyl

Starring Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, and Emily Watson, Chernobyl tells the story of the 1986 nuclear accident in this HBO miniseries.  A companion podcast of the same name, hosted by NPR’s Peter Sagal and Chernobyl series creator, writer, and executive producer Craig Mazin, follows each episode and discusses the true stories that shaped the scenes, themes, and characters.