Just Finished Reading: Engineering – A Very Short Introduction by David Blockley (FP: 2012)

The great thing about the whole VSI series of books is that it allows me to ‘dip my toe’ into new subject areas (or to reacquaint myself with topics I may have studied decades ago) in order to expand my knowledge base – rather than ‘simply’ deepening it. Engineering, along with related fields such as architecture and materials science, is one of those areas I have recently developed an interest in (as you would have seen in some of my recent reviews) and this is another foray into that largely undiscovered country. Unfortunately, despite covering a huge area of potentially interesting subjects – everything from jet engines to electromagnets and silicon chips to vast information networks – this slim volume proved to be rather dull and uninspiring. Rightly, I suppose, the author assumed minimal knowledge of the subject from his readership and proceeded to either dumb the subject down so low it became tedious and frankly insulting or wax esoterically and lose me completely. He may have been aiming for a happy medium but didn’t hit anywhere near that balance as far as I could tell.

Fortunately I am not the kind of person, or have reached that level of maturity (heaven forbid!), where a single disappointing book will not put me off a topic or subject of interest. So, more engineering type stuff in the future – maybe something a little more focused, something with a little more depth and, hopefully, something with a whole lot more zing. As always watch this space.