Of all the books I used, these are the ones with the most news and soul.
Chapter 1: THE MAINTENANCE RACE
A World of My Own (1969) Robin Knox-Johnston
Intrepid non-stop maintenance.
The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst (1970) Nicholas Tomalin & Ron Hall
An optimist's lies; death's honesty.
The Long Way (1971) Bernard Moitessier
The right way.
Chapter 2: VEHICLES (and weapons)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (1974) Robert M. Pirsig
Philosophy via attentive maintenance.
Shop Class as Soulcraft (2009) Mathew B. Crawford
Maintenance embodies intelligence.
Truck (1977) John Jerome
Restoration blues.
The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World (2018) Simon Winchester
THE driver of technical progress.
Farewell to Model T (1936) E. B. White
Adventurous car, young joy.
“Faster, Better, Cheaper” in the History of Manufacturing (2016) Christoph Roser
From hand-axe to Lean.
From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States (1985) David Hounshell
The definitive account.
Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology (2015) Merritt Roe Smith
John Hall’s heroic mechanization.
Military Enterprise and Technological Change (1985) Edited by Merritt Roe Smith
The deep roots of DARPA.
Sixty Years with Men and Machines (1947) Fred Colvin
The ascent of American machine tools personified.
How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot (1969-2001) John Muir, Tosh Gregg, Peter Aschwanden
The most revered user manual ever.
The Merck Manual of Medical Information: Home Edition (2003) Mark H. Beers
The shop manual for your body.
Enlightening the World (2004) Philipp Blom
The Encyclopedia was the real French Revolution.
A Diderot Pictorial Encyclopedia of Trades and Industry - Vols. 1 & 2 (1993) Dover
970 astounding engravings from the Encyclopedia.
The Idea of Decline in Western History (1997) Arthur Herman
Rousseau and the Terror made Romanticism tragic.
How the Scots Invented the Modern World (2002) Arthur Herman
The Enlightenment that lasted.
Dream Babies (2007) Christina Hardyment
History of child-care manuals.
The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship (2018) Jeffrey Forgeng
A Medieval masterpiece.
Dry Stone Walls (2018) Swiss Environmental Action Foundation
Inspirational how-to.
American Gun (2023) Cameron McWhirter & Zusha Elinson
The AR-15 story.
The Hill Fights (2007) Edward F. Murphy
The first use of M16s in battle.
The Gun (2011) C. J. Chivers
The scandal of the M16 assault rifle.
About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior (1992) David Hackworth & Julie Sherman
The scandal of the Vietnam War, by its most decorated veteran.
Rust (2015) Jonathan Waldman
Tales of the war on corrosion.
Armies of Sand (2019) Kenneth Pollack
Why Arab militaries fail.
Mission Command (2017) Donald Vendergriff & Stephen Webber
What makes mission command work.
System Sustainment (2023) Peter Sanborn & William Lucyshyn
Sustainment as a way to think.
Starlink : The Quest for Global Connectivity (2023, Kindle) Henri van Maarseveen
The technical details and history of Starlink.
Elon Musk (2015) Ashlee Vance
The early years.
Elon Musk (2023) Walter Isaacson
Musk at work.
Chapter 3: COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Talking About Machines (1996) Julian Orr
Maintenance savvy is social.
The Social Life of Information (2001, 2017) John Seely Brown & Paul Duguid
Essential to work practice is work talk.
Everything Must Go (2025) Dorion Lynskey
The end of the world is an exciting story. Period.
Earth in Human Hands (2016) David Grinspoon
How to finesse a good Anthropocene.