Poverty Safari
Poverty Safari
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
Debt: The First 5,000 Years
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914
The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

David McCullough
1977
The long, twisted history of the Panama canal told with a wonderful eye for detail,. both personal and political. It's hard to imagine that that a work of construction was considered so vital that it survived the changes of engineering direction, political about-turns, and financial upheavals that bedevilled Panama. It left me wanting to transit the cabal for myself, just to see it and imagine its tortuous construction.
4/5. Finished 17 November 2018.
(Originally published on Goodreads.)
Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer
Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer

Rob Manning
2014
A boy's-own adventure in space travel. Howe do you design, build, fly, and debug a rover the size of a bus that'll have to endure a landing more fraught than any other vehicle ever constructed – and then operate completely remotely, without repair, for years? That this happened at all is a tribute to NASA's planning and management skills; that Curiosity has lasted years longer than ever anticipated is nothing short of spectacular. The book gives as much technical low-down as any space-obsessive could want, with pointers to more.
5/5. Finished 17 November 2018.
(Originally published on Goodreads.)