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Start giftingHow to Invent Everything
A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler
Bookseller recommendation
“If you ever need to rebuild civilization from the ground up, make sure you have Ryan North with you. If kidnapping is not your thing, then at least make sure you have this book. I wouldn't recommend taking the audio though, because if the power to your portable (music) listening device dies before you get around to "inventing" electricity and/or batteries, you're still screwed. This book is filled with really useful information (and some eye-rollingly bad puns) and delivered in a charming, accessible manner by the author/narrator. There is nothing dry or academic here, in spite of the numerous charts and graphs and footnotes and the information is presented in such a way that even a lazy, clumsy person such as myself could probably utilize it to become a Goddess. Or at least the only person in the cave who has fire. This one is highly recommended not only because it is funny and may save your life in the event of the collapse of civilization (or if you get stranded in the past in a time travel accident), but also because the author has a weird fascination with Salt-N-Pepa's Shoop, which I can respect.”
Billie,
Third Street Books
Bookseller recommendation
“I thoroughly enjoyed this listen. In my opinion, it is not always a good thing when an author narrates their own work, but in this instance it was spot on. What impressed me was how well he managed to describe graphs, tables, and illustrations from the written version. That said, I will admit to having skipped past a couple of tables that became tedious listening. I can only imagine how much fun he had reading them. There is humor from start to finish, and I especially enjoyed his handling of famous quotes at the beginning of each section. Since the book is a guide on how to rebuild civilization faster than it developed naturally, the reader (who is ostensibly trapped in the past due to a broken time machine, for which this book is the 'repair' manual) gets to take credit for 'discovering' and 'inventing' all the great advances in history. In keeping with this, all famous quotes are attributed to "You". This is followed by an additional 'also' accreditation to a personage from the 'original' timeline. What is also educational is that as each technological stride is explained, the author informs not only when this it first appeared, but how much sooner it COULD have based on previous advances. A 'technology tree' appendix (which is available on the author's website with all the other described visual aids) lays out exactly which technologies are necessary to take the next step on your path to becoming the most important person in history. Shortly after I finished the book, one of my children asked me several question I was able to answer as if I had always known (rather than just learned it myself 48 hours previously). This is a great resource if you've ever had a desire to know a little bit more about the 'hows' and 'whys' behind the workings of civilization”
John,
Travelin' Storyseller
An NPR Best Book of 2018
"How to Invent Everything is such a cool book. It's essential reading for anyone who needs to duplicate an industrial civilization quickly." --Randall Munroe, xkcd creator and New York Times-bestselling author of What If?
The only book you need if you're going back in time
What would you do if a time machine hurled you thousands of years into the past. . . and then broke? How would you survive? Could you improve on humanity's original timeline? And how hard would it be to domesticate a giant wombat?
With this book as your guide, you'll survive--and thrive--in any period in Earth's history. Bestselling author and time-travel enthusiast Ryan North shows you how to invent all the modern conveniences we take for granted--from first principles. This illustrated manual contains all the science, engineering, art, philosophy, facts, and figures required for even the most clueless time traveler to build a civilization from the ground up. Deeply researched, irreverent, and significantly more fun than being eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, How to Invent Everything will make you smarter, more competent, and completely prepared to become the most important and influential person ever. You're about to make history. . . better.
Ryan North is the New York Times-bestselling author of Romeo and/or Juliet and To Be or Not To Be. He's the creator of Dinosaur Comics and the Eisner Award-winning writer of Adventure Time, Jughead, and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl for Marvel Comics, and he has a master's in computational linguistics from the University of Toronto. Ryan lives in Toronto with his wife, Jenn, and their dog, Noam Chompsky.
Ryan North is the New York Times-bestselling author of Romeo and/or Juliet and To Be or Not To Be. He's the creator of Dinosaur Comics and the Eisner Award-winning writer of Adventure Time, Jughead, and The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl for Marvel Comics, and he has a master's in computational linguistics from the University of Toronto. Ryan lives in Toronto with his wife, Jenn, and their dog, Noam Chompsky.