Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction by Patricia Highsmith

“It is impossible to explain how a successful—that is readable—book is written,” wrote Patricia Highsmith in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. As an alternative, she offers her own thoughts and experiences from writing her novels. It is not a how-to book; it is reflections with less experienced writers in mind.

 Something that comes through is that writing is something of an organic process. Books grow from a seed of an idea to a full plant. The writer must tend its growth, sometimes pruning, to make it beautiful and fruitful. This isn’t a metaphor Highsmith uses, but she frequently mentions how she enjoys gardening, so it seems fitting.

 As this suggests, writing takes time and effort. Highsmith’s normal path involves two drafts and revisions requested by her editor or publisher. In some cases, she rewrote parts of a book more than that before it was finished. Even an experienced writer is unlikely to produce a finished book on the first draft. There will be things to correct, improve, fill in and cut. It is part of the work.

 “I create things out of boredom with reality and with the awareness of routine and objects around me. Therefore, I don’t dislike this boredom which encroaches on me every now and then, and I even troy to create it by routine,” Patricia Highsmith, Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction

 One of the few specific recommendations Highsmith offers is for beginning writers to outline a book chapter by chapter. This will keep them focused on what will advance the story. It takes practice to learn to portion out the parts a book and discipline to make sure every part serves the story. These are skills a new writer may not have, but can develop.

 The book is short and easy to read. Fans of Highsmith’s novels might enjoy a peak behind the curtains. Aspiring writers might find some encouragement is seeing that the things they struggle with are part of the process of writing; they can be overcome with focus, persistence and humility.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Big Thing by Phyllis Korkki

The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics by Dennis O’Neil

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Good Naked by Joni B. Cole

How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan

How to Write Mysteries by Shannon OCork

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Write Naked by Jennifer Probst

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

Writing for Comics with Peter David

 Highsmith, Patricia. Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction. 1983. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1990.

Bigger than Life by Marilyn Cannaday

Doc Savage starred in a pulp magazine that ran for 16 years. It was one of the most popular adventure magazines of the time. Each of the 182 issues featured a novel-length story by Kenneth Robeson, a house name owned by publisher Street & Smith. Each was supervised by the author contracted to produce them, Lester Dent, who wrote 165 of them himself. That was on top of writing stories and articles for other magazines and later in his career writing six novels.

 Dent, a native of La Plata, Missouri, was remarkable in ways that go far beyond his prolific catalogue of pulp adventure tales. Marilyn Cannady tells his personal story in Bigger Than Life.

 Bigger Than Life is the only book-length biography of Dent that I’m aware of. It is, unfortunately, a fairly short book. There is not much know about Dent’s childhood, partly because he didn’t talk or write much about it, though he was clearly shaped by his upbringing on isolated ranches and farms in Oklahoma, Wyoming and Missouri.

 Savage pursued fantastical adventures in the magazine; Dent was a real-world adventurer. He learned to sail, and hunted for treasure in the Caribbean using a metal detector of his own design. He was a pilot and ham radio operator. His interest in sailing, aircraft and technology informed many of his stories, both in Doc Savage and other magazines.

 Each chapter is written somewhat like an essay that focuses on a particular aspect of Dent’s life or career. This can make the book seem a bit disjointed, especially in comparison to biographies that take a more strictly chronological approach.

 Cannady, like Dent, grew up in La Plata. Her own experiences in the area, including a brief stint working at Dent’s aerial photography business, provide a flavor of what his life was like in Missouri.

 If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

Mr. America by Mark Adams

1939 by David Gelernter

Pulp Art by Robert Lesser

 Cannaday, Marilyn. Bigger Than Life: The Creator of Doc Savage. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1990.

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe

Marvel Comics has a long history in comic books, especially superhero comics. It’s first superheroes, the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner, debuted in 1939 and the company is currently unrolling popular series of films based on a The Avengers, a superhero team that first appeared in comics in 1963.

The extended, interconnected, iterative melodrama of Marvel’s comics is a complicated fictional world. The real-world company has a complicated history, too. It started as a scion of a pulp magazine publisher seeking diversify and is now a part of media powerhouse Walt Disney Company. Sean Howe provides a detailed history of the company in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

Howe divides the history of the Marvel into five major ages. He discusses the early history of the company, but Marvel as we know it today could mark its origins in the resurgence of superhero comics of the early 1960s, after a post-World War II slump that all but the most popular titles.

The succeeding ages roughly correspond to the decades. The 1960s marked the birth of modern Marvel. The 1970s were a time of artistic experimentation when comics, especially Marvel, were embraced on college campus and in the counterculture.

In the 1980s, kids who grew up reading Marvel became adults writing the comics. It was also a time when corporate culture began to consume the company—though the priority of making money, executive interference and possibly shady business was something that went back to the days of the pulps. This decade also marked a change in the way comics were sold, shifting from newsstands and grocery-store spinners to specialty shops, which created opportunities and problems for comics publishers.

The 1990s was a period of excess. Comics creators were finally making money (at least some of them were), but old contentions between publishers—especially Marvel—and writers and artists led to the rise of superstars spinning off to publish works to which they would retain the rights. The growth in comics collecting encouraged marketing practice, especially at Marvel, that eventually led to a bust.

Throughout this time, Marvel’s various owners had been attempting to transition the company from a comics publisher to a media company that leveraged its intellectual property in many ways. In the 2000s, Marvel has done that. A criticism often leveled against Marvel today is that the comics are driven by decisions to make the characters marketable in other media, especially movies and toys.

Comics have come a long way since I started reading them as a kid. For one thing, they cost 10 times as much. Howe wraps up with the opinion that Marvels products are better, and in some ways I agree. However, I think comics often uses the words mature and adult when they are simply prurient, and that the improvement in printing quality is not always accompanied by improvements in story or art. I have mixed feelings about the multi-issues stories designed for collection into graphic novels aimed at book retailers, but I think the event-driven mega-crossovers that have become standard for Marvel and DC don’t move me much—I’d rather read a good short story than an overblown novel.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Amazing Fantastic Incredible by Stan Lee, Peter David & Colleen Doran

Comic Book Nation by Bradford W. Wright

Kirby by Mark Evanier

Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones

1939 by David Gelernter

Stan Lee by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Howe, S. Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. New York: HarperCollins, 2012.

Shut Up & Write! by Judy Bridges

Shut Up & Write! is a guide for new writers by author and teacher Judy Bridges. It is one of the most straightforward and simple writing guides I’ve seen, which I like. As you go through it and read about the process and techniques described, you may feel she is describing the very process she use to write the book in your hands.

There are several other things to like about this book. I’ll mention a few here in no particular order except the last.

The book is broad; it covers the writing process from idea to publication. It remains a short book, though, and doesn’t get into excessive detail. I think it is enough to have a generally direction. As a beginning writer, you should be writing and making your work as good as you can; you can figure out the details you need as you go.

Bridges doesn’t elevate fiction writing over nonfiction. If someone writes histories, news articles, technical manuals or advertising copy, they are still writing. Many of the same skills and requirements apply to any type of writing.

I like Bridges’ suggestions for organizing or plotting a story. It is very simple and visual. It is also something that could work for a short piece or a long book. Good planning tools should help one write, not spend a lot of effort on planning.

Possibly the best thing about the Bridges’ advices is that she does not sugarcoat how hard it is to write a book—at least a good one. She tells her readers to put at least two years into a book. Admittedly, many of her students and the audience for this book will be aspiring or part-time writers with limited time, but writing a quality book is about more than time. This realistic expectation will help readers who hope to write a book get in the right mindset.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Finding Your Writer’s Voice by Thaisa Frank & Dorothy Wall

Just Write by Walter Dean Myers

Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender

Mastering Fiction Writing by Kit Reed

No Plot? Not Problem! A Low Stress-High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose

The Right to Write by Julia Cameron

Write Your Heart Out by Rebecca McClanahan

Bridges, Judy. Shut Up & Write! Milwaukee, WI: Redbird Studio Press, 2011.

Jonah

Jonah is possibly the most known prophets of the Bible, aside from Moses, because of the oft-retold story a huge sea creature swallowing him. Like Obadiah, the message God delivered through Jonah was not for Israel, but for a foreign place. In Jonah’s case, it was Nineveh, the capital of the rising Assyrian Empire.

Assyria was a rival of Israel—eventually its empire would include the northern kingdom—so Jonah was reluctant to go when God told him to head to Nineveh. Jonah headed the opposite direction, took to see, his ship was nearly lost in a storm, he was tossed overboard and swallowed. He finally gave up and the sea creature spit him out on the shore.

Jonah was a whiner. He whined about God calling to him to a place he didn’t want to go and a people he didn’t like. When the hearts of the citizens of Nineveh were changed and God showed mercy to them, he complained that this was the reason he didn’t want to go—he knew God would show mercy to a repentant people and Jonah would have preferred that they perish.

Jonah is a lot like us: disobedient, petty, vindictive, whiney, selfish. God used him anyway, triumphantly in spite of Jonah’s bad attitude. God has mercy on the repentant sinners and rebukes the haughty prophet who is supposed to be a holy man.

I recommend reading Jonah if you haven’t gotten to it. It says a lot about the character of God and men. It is an interesting short story, too. The “whale” isn’t even the most interesting part of it.

Jonah. The Holy Bible. New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.

In Memory Yet Green by Isaac Asimov

When I was a kid, my interest in science fiction was fed by reading many short stories from the heyday of science fiction magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. I particularly remember reading I, Robot, a collection of stories written by Isaac Asimov. (The book is still in bookstores after more than four decades. Will Smith is on the cover; his 2004 movie of the same title was based on one of the stories.)

Asimov wrote an extensive autobiography. The first volume, In Memory Yet Green, covers the first 34 years of his life. As you would expect, his life in that timeframe was similar to many other. He grew up, completed his formal education, started his career and started a family.

Like other famous people, Asimov had fortunate timing, talent, and willingness to work hard to achieve something. He is best known for his achievements as a science fiction writer. Writing was not his sole profession during this part of his life, but he was a fairly prolific writer and was well known in science fiction circles. He had a reputation in science fiction fandom before he ever published a fiction story. He was a fan of the early science fiction magazines and regularly wrote letters to them. He made friends with other fans, several of whom became successful writers along with him, particularly fellow Futurians.

As he put time into writing stories, his participation in fandom waned. His other career as an academic chemist also took up a lot of time. Though it is well known among science fiction fans, others may not be aware that had a Ph.D. in chemistry and was a professor at a medical school. He co-wrote two biochemistry textbooks during this period.

The book covers many aspects of his life, both professional and personal. He begins with his birth in Russia and ends as a husband (to Gertrude) and father (to David) on the verge of a career transition. In between he lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, and many other upheavals of the first half of the 20^th Century. Asimov shares his experiences and views of these events.

Asimov’s style in his autobiography is much as it is in his other writings: straightforward and often jovial. He is not shy about his accomplishments, but he is often humorously self-deprecating and willing to confess to his boneheaded moments.

The book will probably appeal mostly to science fiction fans. Asimov got in on the ground floor. He knew many of the other writers, editors, and publishers of his generation including Ian and Betty Ballantine, John Campbell, L. Sprague de Camp, Lester Del Rey, Robert Heinlein and Frederik Pohl.

If you’re interested in reading this book, you may also be interested in

The Ancient Engineers by L. Sprague de Camp

The Astounding, the Amazing, and the Unknown by Paul Malmont

Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

Asimov, Isaac. In Memory Yet Green: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov, 1920-1954. New York: Doubleday, 1979.

Reckless by Chrissie Hynde

As I get older, I start noticing some strange connections. If Peter Parker aged naturally, he’d be the same age as my father. I also learned that Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the Pretenders (one of my favorite bands), is only three years younger than my parents. I can hardly believe it, though there is an unreliable part of my mind that seems convinced that I’m still in my early 20s.

This bit about Hynde’s age is hardly the most interesting thing in her autobiography, Reckless. You find many things you normally find in autobiographies. For instance, her early childhood in Ohio was surprisingly and pleasantly normal.

Things get more interesting in her teen years. She became a teenager in the 1960s and she was swept up into the youth culture of the time. She had two loves, music and drugs.

Hynde did a lot of drugs. She doesn’t dwell on the term addiction, but she doesn’t hide that she clearly was addicted. She subjected to herself to may dangers and abuses for the sake of getting high. A person would not do that if she was thinking straight, but addicts don’t think straight.

Unfortunately, drugs got in the way of the music. Drugs took the lives of many innovative musicians of the 1960s and 1970s, and Hynde mentions many of them that she knew. Two members of the Pretenders, Jimmy Scott and Pete Farndon, died of drug-related causes. It seems that there are several occasions in her story, before the Pretenders, when her dream of being in a band was interrupted by drugs, either her own pursuit of them or her potential bandmates’.

Hynde was adventurous. She traveled far from her childhood home in Akron to Canada, Mexico and France before settling in London. London became her home, largely because of the music scene. There she finally put together a band, though an unusual British band with an American lead. She met an amazing number of other musicians, famous then or later, who were there. It may seem like name dropping to discuss the Clash or the Sex Pistols, but these were people she knew and she lived their ups and downs with them.

The final section of the book, covering the career of the Pretenders, is surprisingly short. Admittedly, the original line-up did not last long due to the deaths of Scott and Farndon.

Hynde’s tone is not nostalgic. She has nostalgia for a Midwestern urbanism that was almost dead by the time she came along. She speaks frankly about her own days. She expresses a strong sense of agency and does not blame anyone for the way they treated her or depict herself as a victim. She seems to regret that the drugs people thought would set them free did not, and that as addicts they kept using drugs long after they knew it was a trap.

If you’re interested in rock and roll (and rhythm and blues and punk), you’ll likely enjoy this book. Hynde clearly loves this music and was around when it was undergoing much innovation. She was friends with some of the first stars of punk. He story is also an interesting section of the 1960s and 1970s. For instance, she was a student at Kent State University and witnessed the protests and other events that led to the National Guard firing on students.

If you’r interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Professional Amateur by T. A. Boyd

The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hajdu

Hynde, Chrissie. Reckless: My Life as a Pretender. New York: Doubleday, 2015.

Dog Days by Dave Ihlenfeld

Dog Days is a memoir by fellow University of Missouri alumnus Dave Ihlenfeld about his year as a Hotdogger. A Hotdogger is one who drives one of Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobiles.

As you expect from a memoir, the focus is personal recollections. To me, this was the least interesting part of the book. I have little interest in reading about a young guy falling in love with half the pretty women he meets and trying to get laid. Too many television shows and films are already built on that premise. Ihlenfeld writes for television now, so he may have been playing to a strength. There is a little bit of a coming of age story; a year in the Wienermobile calls for resourcefulness.

There is a little history of the Wienermobile in the book. I found this to be some of the most interesting stuff. If you have only a casual interest in the Wienermobile, don’t worry. The history parts are short an dispersed throughout the book. It is not the focus of the book, but it adds something good. Sure, Hotdogger is a silly job in some ways, but it is connected to a long history of successful marketing.

The book is a little bit travelogue. I wish there could have been more of this. I don’t normally read travel books, but the context of it made me open to reading about the destinations. Perhaps the problem is that too many of destinations were county fairs, Walmarts and grocery stores. You can only go so far to make them interesting, especially when your memory of the is clouded by exhaustion (and I suspect the occasional hangover).

I enjoyed the book , though. It is an interesting mix of the personal, historical and geographical. It’s a glimpse into something few people experience. And while I don’t mean to offend Ihlenfeld if he is still working there, it is much better than Family Guy.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Paperboy by Henry Petroski

Ihlenfeld, Dave. Dog Days: A Year in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. New York: Sterling, 2011.

Miss Leavitt's Stars by George Johnson

The universe has grown a lot in the last century, at least in the estimation of astronomers. A series of observations, discoveries, and estimations have led from a view that the entirety of the universe is a smallish Milky Way galaxy to the present view in which many galaxies, and large clusters of galaxies, occupy a space that is billions of miles across.

One of the early, and still much used, discoveries that made measuring the universe possible was the period-luminosity relationship of a set of variable stars called Cepheids. Variable stars change in brightness over times. Cepheids change in brightness with a regular pattern. The length of that pattern, or period, is related to the average brightness of the star. Brightness and distance are hard to measure; the star appears brighter or dimmer based on how near or far away it is. Measuring the period of a Cepheid lets us know its brightness, and comparing that to its apparent brightness lets us know how far away it is (using a relationship called the inverse square law).

The Cepheid period-luminosity relationship was discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt. She was not recognized as a professional astronomer by the  academic leaders of Harvard University, where she worked, even though she had academic credentials and publications that put her on par with many who had doctorates in the field.

She was a woman and she was a computer. Before the invention of modern electronic computers, computers were people who managed data and performed calculations. Little is known about how Leavitt felt about the sexual discrimination that was common at the time, and she seemed to be contented with her life. Even so, if she had been a man, her accomplishments would very likely have earned her a plum appointment.

George Johnson’s book about this accomplished woman, Miss Leavitt’s Stars, is not a book about discrimination. It is a brief biography of a little-known astronomer who laid the groundwork for our understanding of the size of the universe.

Leavitt, who died relatively young, left a legacy in the science built on her work. Some of that appears in the work of famous Missourian Edwin Hubble, namesake of the Hubble Space Telescope, used Leavitt’s period-luminosity law to estimate the distance to Andromeda, and determine that it must be separate galaxy and not a cloud in the Milky Way. Astronomy has advanced a lot in the last 90 years, but astronomers continue to use Leavitt’s work to estimate distances in space when they can find Cepheids.

Johnson’s book is short. This is partly because Levitt didn’t leave much of a paper trail outside of her professional writing. It is about equal parts popular science and biography. I enjoyed it, yet I can imagine it being within the grasp of a high school student. It may be a good book for a budding astronomer or physicists. Unfortunately, there may not much more that we can learn about Leavitt, but her story is an introduction to Hubble, Einstein, and others who did important work relevant to astronomy.

Johnson, George. Miss Leavitt’s Stars: The Untold Story of the Woman Who Discovered How to Measure the Universe.  New York: Atlas, 2005.

If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in

Copernicus’ Secret by Jack Repcheck

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STEM Books

I’ve reviewed 39 STEM-related books (and counting).  STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  As you may have seen in the news, there is a push to improve STEM education, interest students in STEM fields, and grow the number of workers in these fields.  The idea is that these will be the skills needed by workers of the future.  If you’re a STEM educator or a student considering a career in STEM fields, you might like to take a look at some of these books.

I’ll confess that I’m not an educator, but I think most of these books will be accessible to high school and college students, and a few to middle school students.  The list is also a reflection of my career and interests in engineering, public health, policy, and history.  Even with these biases, I think it is a good list for someone looking for STEM-related books.

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick’s Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty

I was fascinated by robots as a kid.  I enjoyed reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories.  I longed for the Omnibot 2000 in the Sears Wishbook.

Robots have come a long way.  In How to Build an Android, David F. Dufty describes the short strange life of a very complex robot made to look and talk like science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The robot had a very sophisticated and lifelike head and complex artificial intelligence.  As with most complex things, it was the work of many people who had to solve a lot of problems.

If you’re interested in robotics, this is an interesting nontechnical book.  In addition, you’ll get introduced to some freaky sci-fi.  You may even get as (somewhat) legitimate reason to use the word “Dickhead” (capitalized, it refers to a fan of PKD, so don’t go using it on anyone).

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways by Earl Swift

The Interstate highway system in the United States is one of the most enormous structures built.  Some of the prospective STEM students who read this may actually be younger than the Intestate system, though in some sense it is never complete because it needs constant repair and maintenance.  The Interstates were completed in the 1990s, but the Federal-Aid Highways go back to 1916.

Earl Swift wrote an accessible history of the Interstates in The Big Roads.  If you interested in automobiles or transportation, it’s a good read.

Dreams of Iron and Steel by Deborah Cadbury

Deborah Cadbury describes seven wonders of engineering in Dreams of Iron and Steel.  It covers almost a century of history, but many of the events are concentrated in the Victorian Era.  That was a time of great technological innovation.

Though the book is history, many of the structures still stand.  Railways, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Suez and Panama Canals, and Hoover Dam stand testament to an age of big engineering.

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios

Though the memory of Professor Wragg’s sneer prompts me to not make this confession, part of my interest in science and technology came from comic books.  Iron Man was cool.  Spider-Man’s web shooters were very cool.  Superhero comics are full of fantasy, admittedly, but the strange, unrealistic science and technology they depict have inspired many to study STEM in reality.

Physicist John Kakalios uses examples from comic books to explore real physics in The Physics of Supeheroes.  Sometimes comics get there science right.  Even when they get it wrong, it can be instructive.  If you know what people are talking about when they refer to the “New 52,” you may find this book to be a great introduction to physics.

1089 and All That: A Journey into Mathematics by David Acheson

Here is another confession: I’m not especially interested in math.  I endured a lot of math classes to study engineering.  Reading David Acheson’s 1089 and All That did not require such endurance.  For one reason, it is a short book.  For another, Acheson doesn’t expect his readers to be mathematicians; it is enough to follow the outline of the math he discusses.

I recommend this book because so many people have a fear of math.  1089 can be followed by many high school students and older folks with math phobias.  Just take a deep breath, relax, and follow along as well as you can.  You’ll see that math can be interesting, useful, and even beautiful in a way.

The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn’t be Built by Judith St. George

Judith St. George’s The Brooklyn Bridge is a short history of and iconic bridge.  Written for the bridge’s 100^th anniversary, it is also the story of the engineers who sacrificed life and health to see it completed: John Roebling and his son Washington.  John Roebling was a German immigrant who built many suspension bridges and owed a wire-making business.  He gave his son and extraordinary education in bridge engineering for the time, and before beginning work on the Brooklyn Bridge he served as an officer in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Why should a cutting-edge STEM student read about a bridge that is almost 130 years old?  It’s because we still use and rely on very successful, centuries old technologies.  Improving and rebuilding our infrastructure will be an important part of our economy.  As recently as 2010, New York City and the federal government committed $500 million to repair and repaint the Brooklyn Bridge.

The Essential Engineer: Why Science Alone Will Not Solve Our Global Problems by Henry Petroski

STEM lumps together science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  Is there a difference between science and engineering?  Is it important?

Henry Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history and author of The Essential Engineer, believes there is an important difference.  At heart, science is about increasing knowledge.  Engineering is about invention.  Of course, new knowledge makes new invention possible.  Just as often, though, engineering runs ahead of science.  Sometimes science didn’t advance until someone invented the instruments to conduct new observations and experiments.  The invention of the microscope made possible the science of microbiology.  Steam engines were built and greatly improved before we had a modern scientific understanding of thermodynamics.  In fact, thermodynamics was to a large extent born out of desire to understand steam engines. In this sense, it is an engineering science (study of manmade things) as much as a natural science (study of natural things) or branch of physics.

Petroski’s focus in the book is the importance of engineering to policymaking, where it is often overshadowed by science.  Policy, science, and engineering play off of each other a lot.  Most of my career as an engineer has been related to government, policy, and regulatory compliance.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson

The Ghost Map by science writer Steven Johnson is the story of the birth of epidemiology.  Epidemiology is a medical science that uses statistics to help us understand how diseases operate in a population.  Using various statistical and geographic tools, long before we had computers and GIS, physician John Snow demonstrated that cholera, once a recurring plague that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people in some outbreaks, was a waterborne disease.  This understanding, initially met with much skepticism, allowed officials to intervene to prevent the spread of the disease.  For those who say of their math classes, “I’ll never us this,” here is a case where math (and science and policy) were used to make a great difference.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose

It is not much publicized today that the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 to 1806 had a partly scientific mission.  Captains Lewis and Clark were charges with bringing back samples of the flora, fauna, and culture of the western territories.  It was also hoped that they would find a water passage to the Pacific Ocean.  In Undaunted Courage, Stephen Ambrose writes about the scientific mission as well as the policy, diplomacy, and commercial hopes the expedition carried.

Of course, what attracts most people to the Lewis and Clark expedition is that it was a great adventure.  There is a place in STEM fields for thoughtful adventurers and explorers. 

Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear by Jan Bondeson

A list like this deserves something strange, creepy, and more fun than you care to admit.  Right now, thousands of very young future STEM workers are catching bugs and snakes, breaking their toys to see what is inside, or staring into space with a weird expression of vacancy and concentration.

Jan Bondeson’s Buried Alive is not a morbid book.  It is sometimes humorous, especially in consideration of topic.  From a STEM point of view, Bondeson shows how knowledge accumulates over time.  The fears and activities of our forefathers may seem strange to us, but they sometimes made sense in light of what they knew.  Buried Alive doesn’t simply play off our fascination with the grotesque and death, though the book might not have been written if we lacked that fascination, I think it reminds us to approach our ancestors with a touch of grace and humility.  Maybe our progeny will show us the same courtesy.

If you’re looking for something for a younger student, check out this post→ from Joanne Loves Science or these recommendations→ from STEM Friday.  By the way, I also write about engineering, infrastructure and the environment at Infrastructure Watch.

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