Inventors

[Fishface]

Has anyone read any good bios on inventors? I read a really great one called The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, which doesn't sound like what it is: the life history of a woman, frustrated by the times and her lofty social position, from going into regular police work but who worked with a close friend (a forensic MD) to create the Nutshell Studies -- tiny death-scene tableaux with various clues scattered throughout -- that are still used today, nearly a century later, to train detectives and CSI techs in understanding what to notice, collect, and protect at a death scene. She worked incredibly hard in tremendous detail on these tableaux and a lot of her personality went into them.

I don't know of many titles like this, but another I want to read is Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man, about the father of the frozen-food industry.

[Selina]

I read one called The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants It was quite interesting.

[Selina]

also...Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers Now that was interesting too. The writer was from the Cadbury family.

[Fishface]

Selina wrote: "also...Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers Now that was interesting too. The writer was from the Cadbury family."

So we can expect a biased report when he's talking about those lowlifes who make Mars Bars and Guylian chocolate seashells, but still I would like to see that book...

[Julie]

Fishface wrote: "Has anyone read any good bios on inventors? I read a really great one called The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, which doesn't sound like what it is: the life history of a woman..."

Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man is really good. I had this book but it mysteriously disappeared but I highly recommend it.

[Julie]

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson who weaves the tale of the inventor Marconi and the murderer Crippen is one I recommend.

[Fishface]

I never realized that was about both Marconi and Crippen. Good to know!

[Selina]

Not a biography but I do have the book 1001 Inventions That Changed the World
The inventions all get their own entry, so I suppose you could say its a biographical book of the inventions, not the inventors.