Reviews for Venus: The Myth, History, and Science of the Second Planet

The average rating for Venus: The Myth, History, and Science of the Second Planet based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-12-04 00:00:00 Drew Littlefield If a book has "natural history" in the title, I'm going to love it. I found this book at Goodwill, and it's exactly the type of book I'm looking for when I go on my book hunts--specific but while saying something about the entirety of human knowledge, quirky, and something that will lead me to lots of other books.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-05-29 00:00:00 Steven Morris In this case, the title tells just about all that you need for a book blurb--this is the basics of what the book is about. That said, Rybcynski starts with how he first started too look into this topic, which was an assignment to write about the best tool invented in the last millennia (this book was published in 2011) and it had to be a tool to make things with. He decided it really should be a hand tool, since power tools are improvements. Lo and behold, the screwdriver (not the screw) was basically the only tool that wasn't already around, even though screws had been around since the days of Archimedes (he invented the first one as far as anyone can tell). Along with a history of screwdrivers and screws, he looks into the development of things designed to make screws and some of their history as well, etc. Some of this book held my interest, but despite the solid writing, much of it was rather boring to me. I love the fact that I have screwdrivers at home and the benefits of screws over nails, but the history of it isn't one of the things I find fascinating.