Technology:

The Pixar Touch
The Making of a Company
Written by David A. Price

Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
On Sale: May 13, 2008
Price: $27.95

The roller-coaster rags-to-riches story behind the phenomenal success of Pixar Animation Studios: the first in-depth look at the company that forever changed the film industry and the “fraternity of geeks” who shaped it.

The Pixar Touch is a story of technical innovation that revolutionized animation, transforming hand-drawn cel animation to computer-generated...

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To Engineer Is Human
The Role of Failure in Successful Design
Written by Henry Petroski

Format: Trade Paperback, 272 pages
On Sale: March 31, 1992
Price: $14.95

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The Hunt for Zero Point
Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology
Written by Nick Cook

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
On Sale: August 12, 2003
Price: $14.95

This riveting work of investigative reporting and history exposes classified government projects to build gravity-defying aircraft--which have an uncanny resemblance to flying saucers.

The atomic bomb was not the only project to occupy government scientists in the 1940s. Antigravity technology, originally spearheaded by scientists in Nazi Germany, was another high priority, one... Read more >

Ready, Set, Green
Eight Weeks to Modern Eco-Living
Written by Graham Hill and Meaghan O'Neill

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
On Sale: May 20, 2008
Price: $15.00

The time to save the planet is now.

Ready? Set? Green! Living green means reversing climate change, but it also means protecting your kids and pets, improving your own health, and saving money. And it doesn’t necessarily demand a radical overhaul of your life–just some simple adjustments, such as switching to... Read more >

The Toothpick
Technology and Culture
Written by Henry Petroski

Format: Trade Paperback, 464 pages
On Sale: November 4, 2008
Price: $15.95

A celebration culture and technology, as seen through the history of the humble yet ubiquitous toothpick, from the best-selling author of The Pencil.

From ancient Rome, where emperor Nero made his entrance into a banquet hall with a silver toothpick in his mouth, to nineteenth-century Boston, where Charles Forster, the father of... Read more >

The Mapmakers
Revised Edition
Written by John Noble Wilford

Format: Trade Paperback, 528 pages
On Sale: December 4, 2001
Price: $16.95

In his classic text, two-time Pulitzer Prize—winner John Noble Wilford recounts the history of cartography from antiquity to the space age. With this revised edition, Wilford brings the story up to the present day, as he shows the impact of new technologies that make it possible for cartographers to go where... Read more >

Technopoly
The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Written by Neil Postman

Format: Trade Paperback, 240 pages
On Sale: March 31, 1993
Price: $13.00

In this witty, often terrifying work of cultural criticism, the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death chronicles our transformation into a Technopoly: a society that no longer merely uses technology as a support system but instead is shaped by it--with radical consequences for the meanings of politics, art, education, intelligence, and... Read more >

The God Machine
From Boomerangs to Black Hawks: The Story of the Helicopter
Written by James R. Chiles

Format: Trade Paperback, 368 pages
On Sale: September 30, 2008
Price: $14.00


From transforming the ways of war to offering godlike views of inaccessible spots, revolutionizing rescues worldwide, and providing some of our most-watched TV moments—including the cloud of newscopters that trailed O. J. Simpson’s Bronco—the helicopter is far more capable than early inventors expected. Now James Chiles profiles the many helicoptrians who... Read more >

The Evolution of Useful Things
How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are.
Written by Henry Petroski

Format: Trade Paperback, 304 pages
On Sale: February 1, 1994
Price: $14.95

Petroski tells fascinating stories about the arduous processes that resulted in paper clips, Post-its, Phillips-head screwdrivers, Scotch tape, and fast-food "clamshell" containers. "Petroski . . . an examines the simplest . . . tools in our lives with an appraising eye."--Washington Post Book World. 45 illus. Read more >

The Future of Ideas
The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World
Written by Lawrence Lessig

Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
On Sale: October 22, 2002
Price: $15.00

The Internet revolution has come. Some say it has gone. In The Future of Ideas, Lawrence Lessig explains how the revolution has produced a counterrevolution of potentially devastating power and effect. Creativity once flourished because the Net protected a commons on which widest range of innovators could experiment. But now, manipulating... Read more >