The Toaster Project: Or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch by Thomas Thwaites

Oct 06, 2011 Dana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like Douglas Adams made speculative fiction absurd by brutally acknowledging that (in all *probability*) humans are not very important nor will be in the future, Thwaites (intentionally imitating Adams) has made science writing absurd in a similar way. I mean, he doesn't start his book with the casual death of all human beings save one, like Adams did. But he does begin by proposing a ridiculous project, proceeds to break all the rules he has set for himself, and finishes by acknowledging that h...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Naomi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013, non-fiction

At first glance this seems like a book about a rather silly idea. The photo on the cover doesn’t help; it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a toaster – bad seams and lumpy contours – you might not recognize it as a toaster if it weren’t for the title. The author, David Thwaites, is a design student and has the idea to build a toaster from “scratch” for his postgraduate project. (By “scratch” he intends to mine the minerals, make the plastic, and ‘create’ all the other materials that make a toaster.)...more At first glance this seems like a book about a rather silly idea. The photo on the cover doesn’t help; it’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a toaster – bad seams and lumpy contours – you might not recognize it as a toaster if it weren’t for the title. The author, David Thwaites, is a design student and has the idea to build a toaster from “scratch” for his postgraduate project. (By “scratch” he intends to mine the minerals, make the plastic, and ‘create’ all the other materials that make a toaster.) What the author has done, in addition, is to use a very familiar household object to explore consumerism, capitalism, and the true cost of what we buy, among other things; and all with the dry English wit that I love.

He buys a very ‘cheap’ toaster as his model. It cost him £3.94 (about $6.10 at that time,) which is pretty damn cheap. I didn’t even know that they made toasters that cheap.

He gets guidance on his project from a professor of mining who tries not to discourage him, but recognizes that finding ores, mining them, and processing them is a bigger task that David perhaps imagines. And the plastics are even more difficult to work with.

He disassembles the toaster into its component parts and finds that it has over 400 parts. I had no idea it took that many parts to make a toaster, although with some thought I guess I would have guessed at most a couple hundred. So how uninformed am I?

He determines the make-up of the components and comes up with a minimum of steel, nickel, mica, plastic, and copper. His “rules” are that he stays within the UK to obtain the raw materials, but he soon finds that many of these items are not readily available in the UK. Nickel, for instance, is most proximally available in Russia (Siberia) in the most polluting smelter, or in Iceland, in the most environmentally responsible smelter. The interesting thing is that both plants are owned by the same company. Smelting nickel doesn’t have to be so harmful to the environment, but in Iceland they care to regulate such things, while in Russia, they don’t. (He ended up buying Canadian commemorative coins on e-Bay that were 99.9% nickel and melting them down.)

He travels to the English border with South Wales for steel; to Scotland for mica; to a recycler in Manchester for plastic (he carves the mold in a block of wood for the plastic shell of the toaster, which by the way results in the lumpy shell of the toaster); to the isle of Anglesey for copper (actually in the form of water, from which he uses electrolysis to extract the copper). He tried to make plastic from potatoes, but the results were dismal.

Thwait discusses the UE’s directive about recycling electronic equipment. The law was supposed to make it easier to disassemble and recycle electronic equipment, but ended up only in electronic companies paying third parties to handle the recycling for them. I’m not sure how the electronic equipment ends up with the recyclers (assuming that they do.)

Thwaite determines the final cost of his toaster at £1,187.54. He considers, for example, the cost of travel (or shipping,) the raw materials, as well as the cost of manufacturing the parts. The final cost doesn’t begin capture all the ‘externalities’ involved in his toaster, such as damage to the environment or the cost of disposal.

I am interested in preserving our environment, and believe that I try to do what I can to minimize my impact on it. I don’t have a car; I take public transportation (I *should* bike, but I don’t.) I’m not a very big consumer. On the other hand, I, like many others, tend to discard appliances that don’t work anymore. I’m old enough to remember “fix-it shops,” where you would take a broken toaster to be repaired. (Also televisions and other small appliances.) I don’t know if they exist anymore; I haven’t seen one in years. It’s too bad, because I have a two-slice toaster and a coffee maker that I would love to replace. Now I’ll have to be sure that I keep them in good working order.

This book has been a real eye-opener. I’m going to be more conscious of what I buy and what I discard. I’ll also be recommending this book to others, whether they’re interested in the environment or not. They’ll learn something is they read it.
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Nov 16, 2011 Tammy Dotts rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, science

Think about a toaster for a second. Doesn’t seem all that complicated. Could you build one?

If you had all the pieces – body, wires, levers, etc. – could you put together a toaster? Probably, especially if you found something online.

What if you didn’t have the pieces? Could you make them? Thomas Thwaites took that to the extreme with some inspiration from Douglas Adams and detailed his efforts in The Toaster Project. He doesn’t pop down to the local hobby store to pick up the electronics he needs...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Michael rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book chronicles the Master's project of a British design student to make a toaster "from scratch". By from scratch he means that he wishes to take each component from its natural state to whatever form it needs to be in to be in a toaster. He starts off well enough by disassembling a cheap toaster. He then proceeds to jump in the deep end. He warned off by many well intentioned experts but pursues his dream.
The story lacks a coherent flow and isn't especially compelling. We learn early on t...more

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Apr 30, 2012 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked The Toaster Project mainly for the fascinating lines of thinking it brings up about the capabilities of modern humans, the price of consumer goods versus their true costs, and the materials that go into relatively simple items. However, I wish Thwaites had gone a bit deeper, both in his writing, and in his project itself.

I understand that he was on a school deadline, but I was frustrated every time he cut corners and broke his own rules. Like when he used a microwave for smelting (altho...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Mark Cooper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mark-2012

[Book] The gist is that this UK grad student decided that he would make a toaster from the ground up, literally. As the subtitle says, "or a Heroic Attempt to Build a Simple Electric Appliance from Scratch".

He figures he's a bright, modern human, how hard can it be to make a really basic household appliance? Turns out it's not so simple to mine your own iron ore, nickle, and copper, find mica for insulation, and create plastic from crude oil. Starting with a $12 toaster from the British equivale...more

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Sep 20, 2011 Erik Malvick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, non-fiction, vine, print-copy

I have mixed feelings about this book. The concept of a man making a toaster completely from scratch is definitely interesting, and the author is quite entertaining in his writing.

However, as quick as a read as this book is, I can't help but say I felt 1) a little bored with it and 2) a little shortchanged. The book begins like it is going to be a nice complete document/thesis on his project. He essentially dissects the cheapest toaster he can find in hopes of recreating it from scratch. When I...more I have mixed feelings about this book. The concept of a man making a toaster completely from scratch is definitely interesting, and the author is quite entertaining in his writing.

However, as quick as a read as this book is, I can't help but say I felt 1) a little bored with it and 2) a little shortchanged. The book begins like it is going to be a nice complete document/thesis on his project. He essentially dissects the cheapest toaster he can find in hopes of recreating it from scratch. When I say from scratch, he is going to the point of creating steel from ore and even trying to make his own plastic from oil. He even has the intention of creating a timer mechanism, etc.

The author essentially breaks the toaster down to a handful of raw ingredients, and he does a great job of describing the process of obtaining those raw ingredients. It is humorous at times mostly because the author (this project seems to have been the basis for a thesis in Sociology) has that British sense of humor which includes the ability to laugh at himself and his own naivety. The problem is that beyond those raw ingredients there is little else to this book. I had expected this book to talk about the details that go into making the toaster, but those are mostly limited to the shape of the toaster and its plug. I probably should have expected as much based on the first chapter as it does become apparent (to the reader and the author) that he is over his head before he even starts. Heck he is a sociology student not an engineer, but considering the detail he gives on obtaining steel, nickel, copper, etc, I was left wanting more. I wasn't expecting a recreation of all the parts, but I thought it would be interesting to read about attempts to create capacitors, etc.

Ultimately, the conclusion of his experiment is a bit of a disappointment, after-all, he had lofty goals that feel like he gave up on without really mentioning that he gave up on them.

Never-the-less, the author's strength is in sociology, and the social commentary included at the end of the book is a nice touch although not terribly enlightening. This is a good book for someone who wants a different aspect of social commentary as well as a humorous and low-tech look at technology. It is not a book for those who want to pick on every little detail, socially or engineering-wise. (less)

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Sep 01, 2011 Kasa Cotugno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: genre-science, genre-essay, vine

This was a much more fun book to read than I had anticipated. Thomas Thwaites's choice of construcing a toaster from scratch provided much more of a challenge than he'd planned on. As a design student, he was really an artist, not a scientist, but he couldn't have accomplished some of the tasks he set himself if he hadn't nad at least a rudimentary acquaintance with science. His ingenuity in gathering of materials, including every method from visiting outdated mines to ordering nickels on eBay,...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Camille Mccarthy rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is great for anyone interested in what things are made of, sustainability, materials, or interesting projects. It is basically the result of a UK grad student's final design project, where he tried to make a toaster from scratch, including mining the ore needed to produce the iron parts and making his own plastic. It's a quick read, very funny, and I feel like it is the perfect reading material for any Materials Science and Engineering student like myself. I loved the part where he tri...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Interesting premise, and a quick and fun read, about the various impacts (environmental, economic, labor, etc.) of mass production. There is some science here, particularly in the hilarious chapter in which Thwaites tries to make steel (it involves a hair dryer), and a good amount of information about the tremendous amount of work involved in mining, even "freelance mining." At its heart it is a criticism of capitalism and consumerism, although, as Thwaites states, most everyone, including himse...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Kyle rated it 3 of 5 stars

How often have you thought about the materials and effort that goes into every product you own? Society has developed evermore efficient methods of production. Ancient techniques of turning raw elements from the Earth into useful building materials were painstakingly improved over time. What used to take weeks or months to process by hand in small batches can now be completed in hours, usually by automated machinery. All the trial and error efforts by people across the world from the Bronze Age...more

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Feb 22, 2012 pattrice rated it 5 of 5 stars

The premise of this book is simple--build a toaster from scratch--and Twaites' writing style is similarly straightforward. But what Thwaites is up to here is deep, nothing less than undermining (at one point, literally) the foundations of the throw-away culture upon which both late consumer capitalism and the ongoing rush to wreck the planet depend.

Thwaites tells the story in a matter-of-fact, at times deadpan, voice, punctuating the tale with fun facts, amusing email, and quick character sketc...more

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Feb 03, 2012 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I received this as a Christmas gift, after having been entertained by the interview on the Colbert Report. I read the book in exactly two sittings over the course of one day.

It's told in a style that I wouldn't have expected would work, because he is hilarious - it reads very much as though he's taken on this wacky project as a lark. He would sound flippant if he wasn't so thoughtful - because it deals more than just occasionally with sustainability, environmentalism in general, and the economi...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

On vacation in Seattle I found this on sale for less than the $19.95 on the cover (much less) and bought it - the blurbs make this out to be hilarious when it is more like amusing, but that's ok. The author sets out to create "from scratch" a simple consumer good, a toaster. He documents the process and points out certain implications of the more typical mass production approach to such things. Towards the end he focuses on environmental considerations of our present materialistic society but wi...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Tom rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science, non-fiction, design

A very quick read and an entertaining diversion. Thwaites is an engaging writer, and his project--to build a toaster from scratch, from materials obtainable within his native Great Britain--is an interesting one. That said, the book seems to lack a little heft; while a concluding chapter accurately notes the externalities that we fail to price into "disposable" household products, it doesn't flow naturally from the rest of the book. Instead, what we get is an engaging look into a somewhat extrem...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Nicki rated it 4 of 5 stars

A short, easy read. The story of a guy who tries to personally manufacture his own toaster... from scratch. Meaning he gets iron ore and tries to burn off the impurities, he tries to create plastic from potato starch, etc. Fascinating glimpse into modern manufacturing and how removed we are from the manufacturing (and the real costs) of the products we use every day. Not preachy at all - basically just a description of how he went about his project, complete with tons of pictures as well as corr...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Kristina rated it 5 of 5 stars

Anyone who is interested in design, product design, commerce and global politics should read this. Its also a good read for anyone who wants to see what tenacity looks like. Thomas Thwaites decides to make a toaster from scratch for his Masters Final Project. Not a kit, but from the original ores, and refine them himself. The spoiler is on the front cover, but the journey is laid out for you to see. Its hilarious and intriguing and when you're done you will want everyone to read it. In fact this...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author's writing was witty and down to earth. I admired his creativity and tenacity to stick with his project. So much of our everyday life is taken for granted and we as a society have become so dependent on the conveniences of our industrialism. There really is no going back.
It also opened my eyes to the complexities of extracting minerals from the earth and turning them into usable metals. Yes we have the technology to do this on a mass scale but at what c...more

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Jan 29, 2012 J. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: design-architecture

Basically a longform magazine article, Thwaites' project is often very funny, but he's definitely after certain serious conclusions. Uppermost is probably the concept of Sustainability in a consumer culture where things once meant to last generations are now understood to be disposable. And concocted of bizarre materials, some that are distinctly harmful or toxic, or themselves the result of raping the countryside from which they are found-- for a device that will be used for a year or two befor...more Basically a longform magazine article, Thwaites' project is often very funny, but he's definitely after certain serious conclusions. Uppermost is probably the concept of Sustainability in a consumer culture where things once meant to last generations are now understood to be disposable. And concocted of bizarre materials, some that are distinctly harmful or toxic, or themselves the result of raping the countryside from which they are found-- for a device that will be used for a year or two before becoming unusable landfill. And certainly not a device that might someday be repaired, or converted to other uses.

Every reader will find certain decision making moments here slightly questionable, but this was a university project, meant to earn Thwaites a degree and set up the real questions he wanted to discuss. Probably worthwhile to note that this wasn't a Science degree he's after, but an Art degree, so well within the confines of the discipline. It is full of that boundless enthusiasm of youth of cliché fame, and a certain innocence and charm take it over the usual hurdles.

Each chapter finds Thwaites looking into materials that now arrive on our doorsteps from obscure third-world sources. Part of the charm of this narrative is the delving back into our own sources, long abandoned here in the First World.

To find Mica for insulator shields in the Toaster he's building, Thwaites goes well out of his way :

Knoydart is a small peninsula on the west coast of Scotland, near the isles of Muck, Eigg, and Rum. Though it's not an island itself, no roads go there; access is either on foot over mountains (about a day's hike) or by boat. As well as the postt office, the primary school, and the "most isolated pub on mainland Britain", there is, or was, a mica mine. The mine was used during World War Two when Britain's mica mines in India were unavailable ... The sleeper train from London's Euston Station to Fort Wiliam, Scotland, takes sixteen hours to travel the 475 miles ...

Rather than building demonstrator-models for fait accompli global warming validation projects, Thwaites may have a nice career in store for himself as a nonfiction or documentary subjects author. Hope he keeps to the trail and doesn't go off on some, ahem, "Art" goose chase. Recommended.

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Aug 22, 2012 P. Christopher Colter rated it 5 of 5 stars

The essential premise behind Thomas Thwaites’ The Toaster Project is that in this modern world of ours, we take a lot for granted. Like toasters, for instance.

The 20-something Thwaites decided to create a toaster from scratch for a college project. And by “from scratch”, I mean going all the way back to the raw materials from the earth. He used as his model a toaster from a local department store in England that cost the consumer just under four British pounds, or around six American dollars. De...more The essential premise behind Thomas Thwaites’ The Toaster Project is that in this modern world of ours, we take a lot for granted. Like toasters, for instance.

The 20-something Thwaites decided to create a toaster from scratch for a college project. And by “from scratch”, I mean going all the way back to the raw materials from the earth. He used as his model a toaster from a local department store in England that cost the consumer just under four British pounds, or around six American dollars. Deconstructing this toaster, he determined what the various parts were made of, and set out to mine and refine the minerals and whatnot he would need to make his own. He set certain rules for himself to make the experience authentic, and had nine months in which to complete it all. Along the way, Thwaites shares his project with numerous experts in the fields of mining and refining, as well as friend, relatives, and helpful drunks, meeting with various levels of enthusiasm. There is a toaster at the end of The Toaster Project. I’ll just leave it at that.

A fan of the late British sci-fi/humor writer Douglas Adams, Thwaites cites as part of his inspiration a quote from Adams’ novel Mostly Harmless, wherein one of his main characters, a modern man from planet Earth, is dropped onto another world with only a very primitive civilization. At first, the man has big dreams of totally transforming these “backwards” people with the technology he knows from home. However, as Adams puts it, “Left to his own devices he [the modern man from Earth] couldn’t even build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich, and that was it.” Instead of becoming a great transformer for their society, the primitive people make him their official sandwich maker. I suspect many of us would be lucky to even get that title if put in a similar situation.

The Toaster Project was a fun, fast read. Thwaites manages to be consistently informative and funny, folding in his views on the consumer culture and its environmental impact without ever being preachy or long-winded. His humorous, self-deprecating style permeates the account, and the technical portions are never dry and boring. On top of it all, he makes you stop and think about all of our “stuff”, where it comes from, the people and resources involved in creating it, and what happens to it when we are through. Thwaites posits that if we were actually paying what our possessions were truly worth in terms of the overall labor, transportation, environmental impact, etc involved in their creation, price tags would be much heavier. Even by his admittedly ramshackle accounting, his final version of a toaster cost nearly 1,190 British pounds, or 1,880 American dollars.

A book that will make you both chuckle and think, The Toaster Project by Thomas Thwaites is one I highly recommend.
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Apr 11, 2012 Bryan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Author Thomas Thwaites embarks on a journey to build a toaster, something we use almost everyday, but likely have little to no understanding of how it works or how it is made.

His mission isn’t just to acquire the different parts and put them together, a difficult task in itself, but also to make each part from scratch. Of course ‘from scratch’ can be difficult to define. He quotes Carl Sagan who once said, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” For th...more Author Thomas Thwaites embarks on a journey to build a toaster, something we use almost everyday, but likely have little to no understanding of how it works or how it is made.

His mission isn’t just to acquire the different parts and put them together, a difficult task in itself, but also to make each part from scratch. Of course ‘from scratch’ can be difficult to define. He quotes Carl Sagan who once said, if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” For the purpose of this book however, Thwaites decides he wants to build all the pieces from raw materials, such as the casing, the heating element, and the wiring, and then put them all together to make a functioning toaster.

The problems arise immediately, as he discovers it is nearly impossible to acquire copper, steel or oil on a domestic scale. As a representative from BP told him, “we’re just not set up for the scale you’re working at. If you wanted a tanker full, we could maybe help…” Then of course, most people also lack the necessary tools to turn raw ore into copper or oil into plastic. Even with the knowledge of how to do so, these are herculean tasks.

The most intriguing part of the book for me was how people are so interconnected and reliant on others to have the things we use everyday. Our overall knowledge may be much greater than the average person two hundred years ago, but if transported back in time, we’d be incapable of reproducing any of the devices we take for granted today.

In the end, Thwaites’ toaster cost $2000, with only 22 different parts, doesn’t’ work very well, and quite frankly looks terrible. But he was able to make a toaster; sort of.

It was an enjoyable read overall, but didn’t delve deep enough into the actual making of the toaster. Instead, most of the book talks about acquiring the raw materials and turning them into metals and plastics. Personally, I was more interested in hearing about the difficult of making copper wiring, or creating the spring that will pop the toast up, and then trying to put them all together to make a functioning electrical appliance.
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Feb 23, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Anyone who loves to build things will enjoy this book. Thomas Thwaites was a design student who decided to build a toaster from scratch, partly to see if it could be done but mostly to make a point about how reliant we are on cheap appliances that were manufactured on an industrial scale. (When was the last time you smelted ore?) First he bought a cheap toaster and disassembled it, noting with dismay that there were more than 400 parts. Then he traveled to various mines around the United Kingdom...more Anyone who loves to build things will enjoy this book. Thomas Thwaites was a design student who decided to build a toaster from scratch, partly to see if it could be done but mostly to make a point about how reliant we are on cheap appliances that were manufactured on an industrial scale. (When was the last time you smelted ore?) First he bought a cheap toaster and disassembled it, noting with dismay that there were more than 400 parts. Then he traveled to various mines around the United Kingdom to get bits of steel, mica and copper, all of which had to be processed to be of use. He smelted ore, carved a wooden mold and melted nickel and plastic. In the end, his toaster took nine months to build and cost him more than $1,800.

The book is filled with photographs of his experiment and includes phone and email exchanges with experts. I particularly liked his call to British Petroleum to ask if he could visit an oil rig so he could get some crude oil, which is used to make plastic. (BP refused.) He also met with a professor who tried to convince him not to make plastic because it was too difficult. "That's why we didn't go through the Plastic Age before the Bronze Age."

The last chapter has several thoughtful passages about the collision of industrialization and the environment:

"The real 'cost' of products is hidden. We don't see (or smell) the pollution emitted when iron is smelted or plastics are made. You wouldn't want it happening in your back garden. Equally we don't have to live with all the stuff we throw away. But pollution and rubbish don't just disappear, they end up somewhere, and if not dealt with properly, are costing someone something (their health perhaps)."

Thwaites said he values his handmade toaster and that he'll never throw it away. "Maybe when we're in school each of us should assemble our own toaster, our own kettle, our own little microwave or something, then perhaps we'd be more likely to keep these things for longer, and repair and look after them. This would mean these products would be more than things that just come 'from the shops.'"

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Feb 15, 2013 Amy rated it 5 of 5 stars

A short, snappy, and thought provoking read. Fantastic concept and interesting execution. I wish there had been more text on the development of certain final materials and the assembly, but overall I laughed and smiled my way through the book.

It is a college paper and reads as such. Many of the thoughts do not feel fully formed, as I expect from this sort of document. That being said, it is a launching pad for discussion and thought about a whole host of issues.

Highly recommended.

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Mar 28, 2013 Mark Moran rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: makers, environmentalists

Recommended to Mark by: Amazon

Shelves: non-fiction

This is a short, entertaining read about a graduate student in London who sets out to build a basic toaster completely from scratch, including mining and smelting the steel and copper and refining the plastic for the casing. He and the reader both come to appreciate just how incredibly complicated even the simplest devices are to actually make since essentially everything we use has to be built from rocks and sludge found underground. Lots of fun pictures.

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Jan 16, 2013 Matt Ball rated it 4 of 5 stars

favorite bits:

- the description of the old smelter's handbook and its labels
- notes on the WEEE..self-unscrewing screws and phones that spring apart
- the idea of froth flotation extraction -- getting crushed ore particles to stick to oil bubbles
- the last photo of his toaster among its commercial brethren

It's an awesome record of his project. Rambles a bit and I really wanted to see a photo of toast, but overall a very fun read.

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Oct 24, 2012 Sue Tincher rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book chronicles the author's graduate school project of building a toaster from scratch--that is, getting as close as he can to a typical department store toaster, by making his own plastic, forging his own steel, mining his own mica, etc. A small book that really makes you think about where things come from. Very funny. I thought it was delightful!

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Jan 10, 2012 Carrie rated it 4 of 5 stars

An entertaining look at the effort needed to build a toaster from scratch in one's backyard. The only quibble I have with this book is that the end chapter, expounding upon the hidden external costs that provide us with cheap toasters, seemed tacked-on. This important point about externalities could have been incorporated more smoothly throughout the book.

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Sep 08, 2012 Jim Tincher rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a perfect summer read. It's light but interesting. A grad student decides to make a toaster from scratch - almost literally! He mines the copper for the wires, and creates the plastic. It's a great review of how we have progressed, to the point where none of us can make something so basic that is in each of our kitchens.

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Aug 18, 2012 Brad Wojak rated it 3 of 5 stars

There is something noble in wanting to build a toaster from scratch. In wanting to mine the metal and refine the plastic. This was a fun read, but I don't know if it lives up to the scope of his original project. If you have ever blanked out while waiting for the toast to pop, this will give you something to think about in those moments.

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Nov 29, 2011 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

A pleasant diversion, and I would probably really enjoy sitting in a pub with this guy; he has a terrific voice. He actually did what many of us think about (um, you all do, right? I do, anyway), and he gets lots of credit from me for that. But, as books go, this could have worked just as well as a long magazine article.

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