Machines A Visual History: 100 Machines and the Remarkable Stories Behind Each Invention

Bought for my dad's birthday, he was delighted with it...

This book was bought as brain stimulation for my eight-year-old grandson, who seeks to understand everything that moves; and who, with a bit of appropriate stimulation, will continue to be a lifelong reader.Not with this book he won't.The one invention not covered in this volume is the Editor's craft. The language goes beyond what one might call 'flowery.'Far from satisfying or even stimulating the reader's curiosity, this book will bog-down and bore many casual adult readers. It has been written with an entirely different purpose than the one I had presumed it would have been. It is a coffee table book.

This is an excellent book. It's so very readable. You'll learn so many fascinating facts along the way, there's even a small recipe idea in there too! oh and the type-face is like a type-writer's, which I love. Winner!

Really great interesting book that goes into a lot of detail and contains high quality images inside making it the perfect christmas gift

I bought this book intending to give it as a gift based on a pre-publication description posted months ago which was quite vague.From the current description: "Each machine is creatively profiled and deconstructed in pinpoint detail, with Dom Chinea’s trademark insight and commentary."The word "creatively" is doing some heavy lifting here. So is the phrase "pinpoint detail."Each entry is about one-quarter general description of the machine, and three-quarters the author plugging his show and his adventures finding a decrepit, broken-down version to maybe restore at some time in the future.From the current description: "Striking illustrations by award-winning artist Lee John Philips highlight the beauty of each tool." Sure they're striking, but they're absolutely useless. They could have been replaced with a generic photo.There's a distinct lack of illustrations, let alone explanations, of the inner workings of most. Author anecdotes and very general info about the machine is what you get, but nothing about the complexity of the inner workings of them.For example, the author spends a lot of text discussing the drama of the sewing machine, yet, doesn't even bother to mention how the various machines created their distinctive stitches or why the difference between the type of stitches matters.From the description: "[this book] is sure to be a treasured volume for all creators, craftspeople, and those who like to delve into how things work."As someone who likes to delve into how things work, this book wasted my time. I don't treasure it. And I most definitely don't want to give it as a gift, due to its absolute lack of delivery of what it promises.It delved into the author's ability to make every entry about him. It delved into some of the history of the machines and how they were ground-breaking, but it left out far more than it explained.It did not delve into how most all of them worked. It superficially mentioned how they functioned. Many of the descriptions read like a transcript of a sound-bite intended to be spoken over a video-collage of multiple images of the item. Others read like they were paraphrased wiki entries needing much further expansion.Pro: If you like to read the author's anecdotes where any given machine is a pretext for them to plug their show and talk about themselves, it's the book for you.If you don't mind the author mentioning his show ad nauseam and inserting himself into every entry, this book is for you.If you want something that is a light read, and sparsely fulfills its claims, this book is for you.Cons: If you want a detailed break-down of any given machine, detailed drawings and explanations of their inner workings, look elsewhere. All the machine descriptions are superficial and lack depth.If you like detailed illustrations of the inner workings of machines with full explanations of how their components work together, this book isn't for you. There's none in it.If you like to learn about the inner workings of machines, and only want the detailed history of any given piece of equipment and its inventor, look elsewhere.