Free shipping on orders over $49 - Limited time only - T&Cs apply
Track My Order
Help Centre
Likes
My Wish ListsLogin / Join
Booktopia
Australia's local bookstore
Get Free Shipping on orders over $49
Paperboy : Confessions of a Future Engineer - Henry Petroski

Paperboy

Confessions of a Future Engineer

By: Henry Petroski

eText | 18 December 2007

At a Glance

eText

$18.21

or 4 interest-free payments of $4.55 with

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.

Anyone wondering what sort of experience prepares one for a future as an engineer may be surprised to learn that it includes delivering newspapers. But as Henry Petroski recounts his youth in 1950s Queens, New York-a borough of handball games and inexplicably numbered streets-he winningly shows how his after-school job amounted to a prep course in practical engineering.

Petroksi's paper was The Long Island Press, whose headlines ran to COP SAVES OLD WOMAN FROM THUG and DiMAG SAYS BUMS CAN'T WIN SERIES. Folding it into a tube suitable for throwing was an exercise in post-Euclidean geometry. Maintaining a Schwinn revealed volumes about mechanics. Reading Paperboy*,* we also learn about the hazing rituals of its namesakes, the aesthetics of kitchen appliances, and the delicate art of penny-pitching. With gratifying reflections on these and other lessons of a bygone era-lessons about diligence, labor, and community-mindedness-Paperboy is a piece of Americana to cherish and reread.

on
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

You Can Find This eBook In

Non-FictionBiographies & True Stories BiographiesScience, Technology & Medicine BiographiesHistoryRegional & National HistoryHistory of the AmericasGeneral & World History

More in Science, Technology & Medicine Biographies

Sigmund Freud : Inventor of the Modern Mind - Peter D. Kramer

eBOOK

Sigmund Freud

Inventor of the Modern Mind

eBook

RRP $21.99

$17.59

20%
OFF
Tesla : Man Out of Time - Margaret Cheney

eBOOK

Tesla

Man Out of Time

eBook

$20.99

Men of Mathematics - E.T. Bell

eBOOK

Men of Mathematics

eBook

$9.99

This product is categorised by