One Good Turn A Natural History Of The Screwdriver And The Screw

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684867303
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book One Good Turn written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-09-11 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0743219082
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book One Good Turn written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked him to write an essay identifying "the best tool of the millennium." The award-winning author of Home, A Clearing in the Distance, and Now I Sit Me Down, Rybczynski once built a house using only hand tools. His intimate knowledge of the toolbox -- both its contents and its history -- serves him beautifully on his quest. One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from ancient Greece to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope -- in short, no enlightenment science. One of our finest cultural and architectural historians, Rybczynski renders a graceful, original, and engaging portrait of the tool that changed the course of civilization.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195156331
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Look of Architecture written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bestselling author offers a highly entertaining and insightful look at the meaning and importance of style to architecture. This is a book brimming with sharp observations as it shows the connection between architecture, interior decoration, and fashion. 10 line illustrations.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374713359
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Now I Sit Me Down written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever wondered where rocking chairs came from, or why cheap plastic chairs are suddenly everywhere? In Now I Sit Me Down, the distinguished architect and writer Witold Rybczynski chronicles the history of the chair from the folding stools of pharaonic Egypt to the ubiquitous stackable monobloc chairs of today. He tells the stories of the inventor of the bentwood chair, Michael Thonet, and of the creators of the first molded-plywood chair, Charles and Ray Eames. He reveals the history of chairs to be a social history--of different ways of sitting, of changing manners and attitudes, and of varying tastes. The history of chairs is the history of who we are. We learn how the ancient Chinese switched from sitting on the floor to sitting in a chair, and how the iconic chair of Middle America--the Barcalounger--traces its roots back to the Bauhaus. Rybczynski weaves a rich tapestry that draws on art and design history, personal experience, and historical accounts. And he pairs these stories with his own delightful hand-drawn illustrations: colonial rockers and English cabrioles, languorous chaise longues, and no-nonsense ergonomic task chairs--they're all here. The famous Danish furniture designer Hans Wegner once remarked, "A chair is only finished when someone sits in it." As Rybczynski tells it, the way we choose to sit and what we choose to sit on speak volumes about our values, our tastes, and the things we hold dear.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Harper Perennial
ISBN 13 : 9780006386032
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book One Good Turn Tpb written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Harper Perennial. This book was released on 2002-10-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did Peter L. Robertson think he had the “biggest little invention of the twentieth century”?How did a quest to improve the precision of the screw result in Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery? And how did Witold Rybczynski discover the true origins of the screwdriver in an obscure15th-century tome known as the Medieval Housebook, despite historians’ claims that it had not been invented until three centuries later? In a narrative that reads like a satisfying detective story, Witold Rybczynski takes the humble screwdriver and turns it into an object of mystery, a seemingly simple tool that has driven its way into our history, politics, technology and even fashion. Along the way he introduces us to a cast of inventors, artisans, tool makers and factory owners whose ingenuity has helped to shape our most essential household tools. From the genius of Leonardo da Vinci to the ambitious marketing plans of Canadian Peter Robertson (critics agree that the Robertson screwdriver is still superior to the Phillips), One Good Turn is a book for all those who love tools and inventions, woodwork and metalwork, and who are curious to know more about the origins of our mechanical world. Written in Rybczynski’s trademark intelligent, fluid style, and backed by meticulous research, One Good Turn is infused with the author’s personal sense of discovery and enthusiasm for his subject.

Author : Henry James
Publisher : Modernista
ISBN 13 : 9180943772
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Turn of the Screw written by Henry James and published by Modernista. This book was released on 2023 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young woman starts working as a governess at the isolated estate of Bly outside London. There, she is greeted by the two orphaned children she is to take care of, an ambiguous housekeeper, and an icy, supernatural atmosphere. Soon, a couple of peculiar figures begin to appear unannounced, and a creeping horror tightens its grip on both the governess and the reader. The Turn of the Screw is one of the most classic ghost stories of all time, written by the master of the psychological novel, Henry James. Perhaps more than anyone from his time, James came to inspire our modern horror mythologies, from the image of innocence as evil to schizoid labyrinths a la Roman Polanski. HENRY JAMES [1843-1916] was born in New York but emigrated early to Europe. He is one of the most important names in Anglo-Saxon literature, renowned as a great stylist and as a link between the Victorian era and modernism. Among his most famous novels are The American [1877], Portrait of a Lady [1881], and especially The Turn of the Screw [1898].

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439125104
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Clearing In The Distance written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a brilliant collaboration between writer and subject, Witold Rybczynski, the bestselling author of Home and City Life, illuminates Frederick Law Olmsted's role as a major cultural figure at the epicenter of nineteenth-century American history. We know Olmsted through the physical legacy of his stunning landscapes -- among them, New York's Central Park, California's Stanford University campus, and Boston's Back Bay Fens. But Olmsted's contemporaries knew a man of even more extraordinarily diverse talents. Born in 1822, he traveled to China on a merchant ship at the age of twenty-one. He cofounded The Nation magazine and was an early voice against slavery. He managed California's largest gold mine and, during the Civil War, served as the executive secretary to the United States Sanitary Commission, the precursor of the Red Cross. Rybczynski's passion for his subject and his understanding of Olmsted's immense complexity and accomplishments make his book a triumphant work. In A Clearing in the Distance, the story of a great nineteenth-century American becomes an intellectual adventure.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Turtleback Books
ISBN 13 : 9780613181310
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.1X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Most Beautiful House in the World written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 1990 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A book about architecture: what architects do, how they get it right, what an architectural genius can see, and what distinguishes architecture from other arts. Illustrated.

Author : Nancy Pearl
Publisher : Sasquatch Books
ISBN 13 : 1570616590
Total Pages : 306 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Book Lust written by Nancy Pearl and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What to read next is every book lover's greatest dilemma. Nancy Pearl comes to the rescue with this wide-ranging and fun guide to the best reading new and old. Pearl, who inspired legions of litterateurs with "What If All (name the city) Read the Same Book," has devised reading lists that cater to every mood, occasion, and personality. These annotated lists cover such topics as mother-daughter relationships, science for nonscientists, mysteries of all stripes, African-American fiction from a female point of view, must-reads for kids, books on bicycling, "chick-lit," and many more. Pearl's enthusiasm and taste shine throughout.

Author : Witold Rybczynski
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0140102310
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Home written by Witold Rybczynski and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1987-07-07 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walk through five centuries of homes both great and small—from the smoke-filled manor halls of the Middle Ages to today's Ralph Lauren-designed environments—on a house tour like no other, one that delightfully explicates the very idea of "home." You'll see how social and cultural changes influenced styles of decoration and furnishing, learn the connection between wall-hung religious tapestries and wall-to-wall carpeting, discover how some of our most welcome luxuries were born of architectural necessity, and much more. Most of all, Home opens a rare window into our private lives—and how we really want to live.