Magic with Science: amzn.to/40xLDWt Disclaimer: Tested may earn an affiliate commission when you buy through the links here.

@An_Attempt

Жыл бұрын

So, in high school you learned how to type, and this book taught you the rest of the fundamentals. I wish I could give my nephew this book. My love for science came from asking a few too many questions and a little propaganda from Dexter's laboratory.

@raleighpayne6070

Жыл бұрын

Yes!

@IndigoWhiskey

Жыл бұрын

oh savage did you get a new run of them going? (or just find a reprint i suppose) thats really neat. always felt the best magic was based in science because if you find out the why instead of killing the magic it just teaches a new facet of reality to you and that's magical in its own right. i hope its not a limited run thing as the marketing guys might like fomo but with the shitshows going on at the moment spare pennies for a nice book is something of a luxury that might take a while to afford.

@kaboom-zf2bl

Жыл бұрын

as soon as you said Rick Estrada ... I recalled the name and couldnt think why ... so I did a quick search ... "Estrada also worked for the Hanna-Barbera animation studio in California for seventeen years" . yeah I thought so ... he was one of the people who did most of the cartoons we as kids grew up with ...

@zensuufu

Жыл бұрын

Hey what book did twoodfrd recommend if you don't mind sharing the title? Thank you for your time Adam.

Your family wasn't "indulgent"; they were "nurturing" which is a whole different, 100% better thing. You were really lucky.

@bobbyv3

Жыл бұрын

Unless you know him personally, that is a very presumptuous thing to state.

@acehilm.

Жыл бұрын

​@@bobbyv3 agreed.

@bobbyv3

Жыл бұрын

@M.C. What is? This user taking it upon themselves to correct Adam's own description of how his family interacted with them? So, you're saying it's obvious this person knows how Adam's family treated him better than Adam does?

@realSethMeyers

Жыл бұрын

What an absurdly presumptuous thing to say. Do you know him or his family? You can't just "correct" someone's description of their own family when you've never even met the person. Holy parasocial relationships, Batman!

It would be super interesting /helpful if you could share a catalog of what's in your maker's reference library. Or maybe a weekly segment highlighting what you have found to be definitive maker's reference books?

@di0__0ib

Жыл бұрын

definitely in agreement with this sentiment this would be a wonderful thing to see on a much more regular basis 🔥

@ChrisBrignall

Жыл бұрын

Yes this!

@salvatoreIII

Жыл бұрын

I'd like this as well

@DarthHamer76

Жыл бұрын

id like this aswell, it would be really interesting and informative 😊

@alwaysfallingshort

Жыл бұрын

I was salivating, yeah I wanna hear the names of all those books.

My favorite book as a boy was "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George. A book that given to me by my grandfather. The story of a 12 year old boy who moves away from home with his fathers permission to live by himself on his grandfathers ancient abandoned farm. By visiting the local library, (topical :)) he learns to live off the land by reading about edible plants and animal trapping. He builds a home and all of the furnishings in it by hollowing and burning out an old tree in the woods. Even going so far as to scale a mountain to catch and train a peregrine falcon chic. The story lives in my memory to this day and I have gifted the same book to my nieces and nephews.

@benjamino5

Жыл бұрын

Yes! Finally someone else who remembers that book. I loved it so, so much. I remember reading that around the same time I got into Gary Paulsen (which makes sense, of course).

@bboomer7th

Жыл бұрын

I had forgotten about that book until now. Thanks for the reminder.

@sschmidtevalue

Жыл бұрын

I read that and found it inspirational too. There are some sequels you should check out too.

@DoctorEmpirical

Жыл бұрын

Note that there were several sequels, all worth reading, especially the one that was from the viewpoint of the falcon. Can't recommend the movie, sadly.

@MjStrwy

Жыл бұрын

Fantastic book, and one of my favorites as a kid as well. It's like a combination of Hatchet and Walden for children.

The Way Things Work by David MacAulay was one of my favorites when I was a kid. I actually just recently ordered them all again. I'd accidentally left one of them, along with my gameboy, in a Taxi in Switzerland. (long story)

@JosephDavies

Жыл бұрын

Yes! That was an _amazing_ book. It was very eye-opening for me.

I love how you give these credits to Jamie in your videos every now and then. And what a wonderful book!

@wobblysauce

Жыл бұрын

Credit were credit is due.

I too was a Saturday morning Library Lizard and our librarian was wonderful. While checking out a 'kids' book, I was 10, she asked why I kept looking behind her when checking out my books. I replied that I knew math and science books ("adult section" so off limits to me) were there. She said she would allow me to check out books from those stacks as long as I showed them to her first. My first two books were "Mathematics and the Physical World" by Morris Kline and "Calculus made easy", author???? I was so excited I nearly wet my pants. She also allowed me to check out classical music LPs, Albeniz through Xenaksis. And so my long journey of learning began.

@Lucien86

Жыл бұрын

Yep - Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson. Still in print today. A really useful preliminary book in learning calculus..

@h.Freeman

Жыл бұрын

The good old days. My kids don't like reading, hate school but get good grades. I hated school, got poor grades; loved learning, so most of my education began after school, Amongst the towering stacks of the Enoch Pratt free Library.

@michaelscheel9533

Жыл бұрын

I had a Librarian like that, She let me check out adult books from Science Fictions, Science & History.

@DoctorEmpirical

Жыл бұрын

Librarians were always telling me "You're too young to read that." So I considered them obstacles to be outwitted rather than helpers. That was a learning experience in itself, I suppose.

I live in the UK and I remember my mum giving me that book around 1977 - 80 .... I had so many little kid experiment book stuff ....lol potato battery always fascinated me

The entire “Tell Me Why” series of books kept me entertained through elementary school. I also read the entire World Book Encyclopedia. Indispensable parts of my childhood, they have served me well.

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I forgot about this book. This book was centerpoint a full year of my childhood. I just relived some magical memories. Thank you.

@TesserId

Жыл бұрын

Same here.

To this day the book “The Way Things Work” by David Macaulay holds the place of gold standard, for driving my curiosity of the physical world. Amazingly instructive and comical illustrations of cavemen and mammoths accompany each section, describing the application of principles starting at a wedge and moving up to a piano key/hammer arrangement. I’m not a professional in any sense, though I did repair work on large appliances and sewing machines for a time. Mostly as a enthusiastic hobbyist and occasional diy-er, the knowledge imparted through those pages informed my instincts when choosing a course of action, or even a method of teaching physical principles to others. Like showing a younger coworker just a couple days ago, how to move a stack of heavy beverage cases with a dolly, but using a crowbar (basically a compound wedge and lever), as a mental example. And he got it pretty fast. Valuable indeed. There’s been some revisions and additions since my copy was printed, mostly involving wireless communication, so I might be overdue for a revisit. Anyway, that’s mine. Thanks as always for sharing!

❤Love this!❤ The inspiration from such books cannot be overstated. Libraries matter!

As a kid I spent many hours going the rough my "Science and invention encyclopedia (How it works)". It was quite the catalyst for me developing my minds ability to understand things.. In fact I still have it on the shelf with my regular encyclopedia.

What a lovely and loving tribute to a neat book. My favorite book was not a maker book but a compendium of true stories about dogs and horses called More Than Courage. Thank you for this, Adam. This was wonderful.

I always loved the cut-away/cross-section books, that would show the intricacies of the inner workings of things. Castles, Ships, and all sorts of complex large manmade structures/vessels. I believe Adam even mentioned this before but yes, there is always somebody taking a $#!+ hidden somewhere in all of those diagrams.

@CheyenneRose

Жыл бұрын

Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross Sections! I remember distinctly when I was 8 and saw the first one while shopping at Costco with my family. My brain still references his books today. Absolute brilliance. ❤

@shooob

Жыл бұрын

@@CheyenneRose His Cross Sections books had a huge influence on my childhood. A couple years ago I bought some of his prints (signed & numbered!) from his website, and they are proudly displayed in my home.

When I saw the thumbnail I literally ran into my study and grabbed this same book off my bookshelf. This was one of my favorites as a kid. I'm a science teacher now

I had a Superman annual (1980) as a kid and not so long ago, flipped through it again after finding it in my father's loft. I agree with what you said; somethings get burned into your head as a kid. Over 40 years later and I remembered the stories and content of the book. Thanks Adam. Watching your enthusiasm here brought a smile to my face.

I had that same book, back about 1970 or so. I had nearly forgotten about it, until I saw it in the thumbnail. Then, all of the memories came rushing back.

"Nothing quite replaces doing it yourself"- Adam Savage this speaks to me deeply, as I've learned I'm much more of a physical learner, I understand things far better by touching, and handling something than when I've seen, read or ben told something.

The nostalgic feeling we get when having on our hands objects that were important part of our childhood is priceless.

OMG! I remember that book. I loved it growing up but hadn't thought of it in ages. The illustrations are what clued me in.

I loved the explanation of information VS intuition so much. It put an accurately worded answer to a question often asked of me that I have struggled to adequately explain. Thank you! also, I now feel vindicated in my learning process after hearing you explain your own (extremely similar). Because my spouse often walks into the room while I'm frankensteining something together and just asks "why...?" and several months later we'll be doing something and the intuition that was gleaned from a previous project informs a present decision. To which my spouse responds "how do you know this?" so yeah... I know this is a rambling comment but yeah.. lol

@GuabaMan58

Жыл бұрын

Frankesteining something is such a joy!

I can’t tell you how many times I borrowed How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way from our local library when I was a kid. Enough that both my boys now own their own copy so I could share in their discovery of that tome of awesomeness.

My go to at the library was Joy of Cooking, 1964 edition, Irma Rombauer. At 11, I found it fascinating to read about other foods that I had never experienced. My mom had a copy of the 1950 Betty Crocker cookbook, and I still love all the little side stories about the dishes origins.

@vilstef6988

Жыл бұрын

Whenever I find a used copy of Joy of Cooking, I buy it to gift to friends. My wife had an older edition which had a chapter on butchering and cooking wild game.

It was a series of books called "Foxfire". There is a ton of almost lost knowledge that goes back 100s of years that people of Appalachia were still practicing in the 1960s. The authors of the book presented it like a living anthropology collection.

Theres a book called "Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It" Solid book. Definitely add it to your library.

@EvilRSA

Жыл бұрын

🤣

@Jellyjam14blas

Жыл бұрын

Someone made that book into a hammer and sent it to him!

@di0__0ib

Жыл бұрын

never heard of it I'll have to try and find it doubt I will, though sounds super obscure 😂

@tomhorsley6566

Жыл бұрын

What I don't understand is why he didn't make room to store it on his new and improved hammer storage rack :-).

I used to look-read a book called Gnomes by Poortvliet (artists) and Huygen (text). The illustrations always intrigued me as a kid. It was translated from Dutch to English in 1977.

@TestTest-eb8jr

Жыл бұрын

I still have a (first edition) copy of "Kabouters" (Gnomes) by Rien Poortvliet.... [ I'm Dutch ] I've met him twice as my dad was instrumental in getting the book published; (amazing though a bit quirky guy)

@persuasivebarrier2419

Жыл бұрын

@@TestTest-eb8jr that's cool. and thank you to your father. wouldn't call myself an artist, but its illustrations were instrumental to exploring art in my life. stunningly warm and homey.

I don't recall that book cover, but I remember all those tricks, and the drawings. So, evidently I had access to that book. I have memories of so many of those. I'm 2 years or so younger than Adam, so similar growing times.

You were a library page!!! That was my first library job too. Now I've worked in libraries for 20yrs. Pleases me to know we had such an effect on your life.

Learning by doing is one of the best ways to learn hands down. Doesnt matter if its magic tricks or model making, it is all learning by doing.

Adam, I too had that book (or borrowed it often from the Library). Seeing these illustrators again brought back so many memories. Thanks for sharing!

Walter Gibson was a great writer. He gave us The Shadow. Another great guy who, as kids we watched, was Don Herbert or Mr. Wizard.

I love these videos where we get our own contact high from Adam's joy :-).

The book that was my childhood was 1990 "All Colour Children's Encyclopedia" by Michael Pollard. Apparently I would refuse to have story books read to me, I wanted my parents to read pages of the encyclopedia over and over again all about interesting science and engineering topics. I can still clearly see the diagrams of Apollo and the Space Shuttle clearly in my head even though I haven't seen it in 20+ years! I'm now a machinist, mechanical engineer, data analyst, maker, and general child of the world of making just like yourself! Thanks so much for an awesome series Adam!

I didn't remember the cover but as you paged through the book I recognized the drawings in it for my childhood, I never owned that book but I must have checked it out from the local library that we would go to every couple of weeks.

Watching your pure glee while looking at the book was magical

I grew up reading illustrated science/encyclopedic books. So glad I had that fundamental understanding of so very many of the systems and principles that our world is made of.

Wonderful to hear what a strong effect this book had on you and your thoughts on experimenting on your own and trying things out. Thanks for sharing.

Not quite from my childhood but, 'The Flying Circus of Physics'. The great thing about the book is that it poses questions relating to things we see every day and asks "why?", or what would you expect to happen in a given scenario. And the kicker is, it doesn't tell you. (though you CAN find a version that does have the answers in the back of the book. But where is the fun in that?) One that stood out for me at the time was, "Why do things like clothing appear to be darker when they get wet?"

Looking at the cover of Magic with Science, and seeing the images, I feel like I read this book when I was much younger, but I only have a vague recollection. I need to go find a copy of this to pass on to my kids. Thanks for sharing this, Adam.

I wouldn't call it a Maker's book, but when I was about 5 years old I knew I wanted to be an *entomologist* some day. That never came to be, but the Insects nature guide by Zim and Cottam basically taught me to read, read maps, measure things, and observe my world in detail. The color hand-painted illustrations are amazing.

I remember that book! What a blast from my past! But the book that was most influential on my "maker" self was the book I saw my Mom use to fix a lamp, a hole in the drywall, any number of other things in the mid-'70s. The "Readers Digest complete do it yourself manual". Big yellow hard bound book with excellent illustrations. My dad was not a tool guy. My mom had an innate troubleshooting skill and could absorb "how to" content and figure out how to fix stuff. So glad I inherited some of that and learned by observing her at work. I've been a self taught maker my whole life, and trace the beginnings of it to this book.

Without a shadow of a doubt the "Childcraft How and Why" collection which my parents bought with our World Book Encyclopedias and lived together with them on a bookshelf were a force for who I became. Each book took one sweeping subject, (The Animal Kingdom, Plants, Our Universe, Make-and-Do, Once Upon a Time., Poems, Human bodies, HUNDREDS of hours were spent in those pages. Every school report started at that bookshelf... ours and many in the neighborhood, because our tiny town didn't have a library. Absolutely seminal to my time here on earth. They were bright and colorful with photos and illustrations and so inviting. Thank you for bringing them to mind.

Childcraft encyclopedia Make and Do……I read every page of that book a thousand times. As a matter of fact I read every volume in that set a thousand times. Thanks helping me remember that!

1960s UK here. Ladybird Books. Some were for very young children but others catered to 10-12 years old. Books about how cars work, how to build things, art and so many others. All are absolutely gorgeously illustrated in full colour. A very formative thing from my childhood.

It makes me unreasonably happy that you found and acquired a book that meant so much to you. I'm fortunate to still have two books from when I was 3yo (they didn't need rebinding) that mean a lot to me. (They're not practical books as is yours, but still foundational). I also have to say that the modern ability we now have to look up information and research backstories or chase details is the true magic of our day.

Campfire Girls’ Adventure Trails workbook was mine for a few years when I was in 2nd and 3rd grade, I remember. We’d get a bead or a badge we could attach to our blue vests each time we had successfully finished or tackled a task. Sometimes it was a science experiment, other times there were arts and crafts or totem type activities, making up your own name, learning a song etc.

I'll give 2 that come to mind immediately. 1st was a children's encyclopedia (I have no idea all these years later who the publisher was) but I used that set until jr high school. I pored over it repeatedly. 2nd, not a maker's book but fiction, was Kavik the Wolf Dog by Walt Morey. That book established my concept of compassion for both people and animals. I wouldn't be who I am today if not for that book.

My parents bought a set of the World Book Encyclopedia. I would take a volume and read it from front to back. The sections on automobiles and aircraft are locked in my memory.

Brings back memories of hanging at the school library look at those cutaway books of ships/airplanes and such and marveling at the illustrations. Time to go look those up for a trip down memory lane. Illustrations were king of the day back then. I use (very crude) illustrations I make when making things. Nothing like the art of a true illustrator.

My favorite childhood books weren't books, they were a stack of old Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Mechanics magazines from the 60's that my Grandfather had. I went through all of them multiple times, cover to cover, dreaming of building some of the things in those magazines. This was when these magazine articles gave you enough information to actually build the stuff they were writing about. I'm 59 now and my library has grown considerably, but I still have those magazines in a box somewhere, I need to pull them out and look through them again. These magazines shaped me a lot, along with a set of Practical Handyman encyclopedias from the 60's. Honestly, don't know how I didn't get into making rather than computers like I did. Often, I wish I had chosen a different path.

"Syd Hoff Shows You How To Draw Cartoons" is a childhood book I remember very well, because it made me refine my drawing skill to simpler shapes and character expressions.

Some of my earliest memories are of the Charlie Brown encyclopedias. I would read through them religiously, particularly the one about space flight.

I've been doing magic since I was 6 and had books just like this growing up. The one thing magic really re-enforces is the fact you have to DO IT. Magic doesn't just happen, you have to be a participant in it's manifestation. It's a skill that translates across multiple other arts. It definitely helped me later in life as I became a prop maker and escape room builder. Having said all that, I had a book called "Pentamagic" that showed science, puzzles and magic.

WOW! it wasn't until you showed the illustrations that I realised I had that book as a kid.

Thank You! I am a magician and graphic designer. As a life member in the Society of American magicians, I read many of Gibson's books. So much of who I am and how I go about things, came from those books. He had a wealth of knowledge. Growing up in Philadelphia (where he also grew up and lived), we have many places and organizations named after him. TY for showing this. It made this guy very happy about reading so long ago.

Wow! I totally had that book! I forgot about it, this brought back SOOOOO many memories. Thank you! And yes the balloon not popping was my favourite.

6:41 thanks for break it down!! Love this channel

One of my favourite books was Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. A fun read with interesting anecdotes. It taught me that you get out of life what you put into it. As the owner of several small Japanese dirt-bikes in the 70s, 80s and 90s, I learned to maintain and repair them. Including cleaning them. Riding them was more enjoyable when they looked good and ran well due to the effort of maintaining them properly. A good lesson from the book.

@mikevandebunt811

Жыл бұрын

There was a book from the late 60s on how to repair your own VW Beetle that was entirely hand written and hand illustrated. It would be right up Adam's street, if he doesn't already have a copy.

OMG I had that exact same book as an early 70s kid, and I devoured it in the exact same way. It's part of my mental makeup to this day also. SO GREAT.

For me, my library is full of horse books; however, my father is a general contractor and my mother was a stay at home mom until I was in Sr. high school. So my maker tendencies comes from helping my mom do preserves (actually I have quite a collection of preserve books - some quite old), and watching her make clothes for me. As for my Dad, well he was always happy to explain why he would build stuff. From houses to putting up a shelf. I am fortunate my parents never distinguished stuff as "for girls" vs "for boys" and my dad happily would explain to me how engines worked and (in general terms) how planes flew. As someone who is only 2 year younger than you, Adam, I too used to spend a lot of time at the local library. One of the places we lived, I was able to keep my horse in the back yard and I used to ride her to my local library. It was like being 12 with a car! LOL

'How and why wonder books' had very similar mystic where many simple concise illustrations drew you into a topic and captivated intrest. Amazing how some of the illustrations "burn into your brain" and become recalled all through life when relevant experiences pop up.

The classic Wil Huygen Gnomes had a massive impact on me as a child.

Walter Gibson!!! He worked with Houdini, and wrote the majority of the original Shadow novels starting in 1932. One of my favorite people! IIRC, he also wrote a book on Houdini's magic.

I was reading up on Ric Estrada, the visual artist who made the drawings. He was mainly a comic book artist and did a ton of work for DC Comics. I loved it that he co-created Lady Shiva, who eventually became the mother of Cassandra Cain, one of the Batgirls and a personal favorite of mine. I recently bought Lady Shiva's first appearance (Richard Dragon, Kung fu fighter 5). Really fun to know that the Ric Estrada of Lady Shiva also illustrated Magic with Science!

Thank you, Adam! I work at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation in Waltham and we just created a kids learning space called Innovation alley. I have just purchased a copy of this book to add to our library there and look forward to it expanding young minds soon!

I had the same exact book and remember most of those pictures.

Just having Adam communicate this book's existence and importance (too him), moved its price point to $90+ LOL! Great video, Adam!

@mikevandebunt811

Жыл бұрын

And now, 14 hours after the video went up the price of the last copy on Amazon is $211. The Savage Effect is truly powerful! 😁

The Arnold Lober book "Owl at Home" its a simple children's book but it has such a good mood to the illustration and great little stories for kids

There were two textbooks I learned so much from! Both were fifth-grade textbooks, one on "general science", which had experiments to do, and explained how your shower curtain was drawn to the water by the change in air pressure, the other was an English textbook, that instilled a life's-long love of languages by printing a German poem that had similar enough words to be understood, and discussed Beowulf, in the old English, explaining how English had changed over time... AND talked about the "gazophylacium", one of the early words for an encyclopedia. It should tell you the impact those two books had that I can remember those things (even to the point of reciting that German poem) fifty years later. Both were actually gifts from my maternal grandmother, because she knew I was being bored in my school classes. I doubt I could ever find either book again, I couldn't tell you the authors or publishers, and only remember that the English book had a green cover. But I can so relate to your excitement over finding a book that's so pivotal to your childhood.

This was surprisingly very nice and lovely, happens only when someone is really genuinely into the topic and really loves the thing he's talking about. Well done 😉😊😁

This book holds fond memories for me and I appreciate the reminder. Having painfully experienced the Savage Effect many times, I've learned to order the first copy I find... even if it's not exactly the format or condition I want. Both hard and soft covers are on their way!

@williammason2305

Жыл бұрын

[The softcover is going to my 10 yo ND grandson]

@TesserId

Жыл бұрын

I think back to it often. But, having the pictures that I have not seen in decades brought back is a treasure.

This is an old one. My dad was a book collector and my early childhood was spent in used bookstores and thrift shops. From 1937, The Play Book (An Elementary Book on Stage Technique with Nine Plays of Various Types and Some Suggestions for Creative Use of Plays and Playing) by Jean Carter and Jess Ogden. Although the bulk of the text is the plays, the final chapters on producing, scenery, and makeup from the 1930's no less, was a great rudimentary introduction to stagecraft and weirdly gave me confidence to try my hand at such endeavors at an early age.

This reminded me of a book I poured over as a kid, the UNESCO Source Book for Science Teachers. It currently has one review on Amazon, which actually goes into a lot of background about the book. The TLDR is, it was post-WWII science resource book for countries that had been hit hardest in the war. It contained many, many illustrated science experiments designed to be done with nothing but commonly available materials, so in that way, it reminded me of you book. It was printed in 1956, so there's bound to be some stuff that's out of date, but it was so focused on the fundamentals, I'm guessing a lot of it holds up. It wasn't written for kids, but it was simple, clear and concise, and young me ate it up.

My favorite book was The Scientific American Book of Projects for The Amateur Scientist by C.L. Strong. I checked that book out so many times in middle school that the librarian asked me to look at other reference materials to give someone else a chance to read it. I loved that book and those projects. Great review on your book! Love your channel.

I read that book so many times and learned so many things i still use

(okay, this time I won't include an external link) I did the same thing, searching out a book I remember from childhood. We had this cubby of books in our camper-trailer growing up and I so remembered the illustration style. Finally found a couple of them: "The Golden Book of Camping" (1960's edition) and (the non-PC title) "The Golden Book of Indian Crafts and Lore". The amount of "makership" displayed in hammering out your own set of camping cookware our of cans and metal scrap, not to mention sewing your own tent, is impressive. I doubt kids today - or in my day - could have accomplished similar.

Man, I remember books like this when I was a kid! One that I used constantly was the Make And Do books from the Childcraft: How And Why LIbrary sets. I had one gifted to me when I was like 4 years old that was a 1980's version of the same set printed in 1972, but I also found a 70's version later at a garage sale, and it also had a Make And Do book which had even more projects in it like building battleships from cigar boxes and making plasticiene clay and using modeling clay and fingernail polish to create doll clothes. It was so cool! It definitely inspired my maker sense! My dad still has both sets in his basement, and I love to read them even today!

Wow, now that the power of Magic. It's Science

I had several of Gibson's magic books (and still do) including the one from Mark Wilson. They always had great illustrations and descriptions.

Such a good topic. I also worked as a library page as a kid! The Way Things Work by David Macaulay snared 10 year old me. Then I went down the rabbit hole of all of his other books. Incredible illustrations.

Not a maker book. However, the Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base was an illustrated mystery/puzzle/riddle book that I spent so much time on. I credit it with my problem solving/puzzle solving skills.

Such a great story. This video made me think back to a book that had a similar impact - "A Boy and a Battery" by Raymond Yates. I wore that book out when I was pre-teen, and used it to learn, succeed, and fail many times in my much younger years. Modern social media is an amazing tool - but I think it loses out to books in developing patience and focus.

Very touching, I'd like to see and hear Adam talk about his maker's library collection more.

My granpa gave me a book called It could be worse. A simple child’s book. But I read it a lot and to this day. I keep an upbeat attitude and never get myself down because I can hear my grandpa saying. You know it could be worse

The ability to deep dive into things like this as a child is something I feel is a bit lost in our current situation. We used to have to wait until Saturday morning to see our cartoons and you had to hold your bladder for commercials because there was no pause button. Being able to command pretty much any information you want without much effort is nice but you lose the essence of the search. Remember back when there was something you couldn't recall like someone's name or a movie line and you just had to wait until if finally came to mind? It might be minutes or sometimes a week or two later...BAM, there it was. You felt a sense of accomplishment and pride for having remembered. Now you just whip out your phone and look it up. No fanfare. No excitement. I miss that.

Pagoo, by Holling C. Holling (Author), Lucille Webster Holling (Illustrator). Not a maker book, but a book about the life of a hermit crab. The illustrations are FASCINATING and WONDERFUL. It kept me entranced for hours upon hours.

Reminds me of my childhood copy of Mr. Wizard's Supermarket Science😭 I loved that book

As a magician - and maker - I had a similar book that, looking back, was probably a huge influence on shaping who I am today; it was called "Magical Science" and I got it at a Scholastic Book Fair in the '90s. I'm just betting that they snagged that idea from your Walter Gibson book there.

I was also interested in magic as a kid, having grow up during the 90s TV magic boom. The first real sleight of hand book I got my hands on was Bill Tar’s Now You See It, Now You Don’t!, lessons in sleight of hand. It contains no photographs, but a bunch of beautiful hand drawn illustrations of how to do relatively simple sleights (fans, cuts, lifts, palming, etc) that allowed me to reverse engineer a lot of card tricks I saw on TV.

In a similar vein, a book I was obsessed with in the late 70s was Magic Wanda’s Dynamite Magic Book from 1976. And the Ed Emberley drawing books, I spent countless hours with those.

Baden Powels 'Scouts Handbook' I read that thing cover to cover countless times and tried most things in it. It's definitely a book that defined me, kindling a love for the outdoors, bush craft, building with natural materials and improvisation

For me, it was first two The Mad Scientists' Club books by Bertrand Brinley and illustrated by Charles Geer. They aren't strictly maker oriented or reference works, but they were inspirational to me as a pre-teen. They have gone back into print, along with two subsequent books that were extremely rare back in the day.

@mrmicro22

Жыл бұрын

They were the blueprint in my head for what my teen years should be. I had to work to make it happen.

I had a similar book titled "Learn Through Play" (By H.J.Press, Lithuanian translation). It had 200 experiments, some of them I've seen in your book too, like "the hole in a palm" trick. It was a thin one as every experiment only had a small illustration an a basic description. But the book that was "the one" was "The Usborne Children's Encyclopedia". Man, the illustrations there are so good! In fact it is mostly illustrations with some accompanying text. I still find it to be the best learning format for me.

James Burke's Connections. I saw the PBS series when I was 8 or 10, and it profoundly affected the way I think. Later, I found the book, and have since, re-read it and re-watched the series every year. Connections live between everything, and most people don't see them at all. I also was heavily influenced (although much later) by Burke's The Day the Universe Changed (series and book), which is about connections between ideas, not technology.

Great episode!

World book encyclopedia made books called Childcraft. Ten-twelve volumes. One was on making things like puppet heads out of wood glue and saw dust and little tractors out of thread spools. I read every page many times and made everything in that book.

I have the book Adam is showing! Then again, being a Huge Fan of Magic/Illusion History I cannot get enough old magic books! 🤘👽👽👽

Great stuff, as usual, Adam! As a long-time bicycle mechanic, I'd like to recommend "The Bicycle Wheel" by Jobst Brandt. It's the definitive work on the structural theory of the bicycle wheel and also the proper techniques for building them.

I've been donating books (gotten through thrift stores) to a channel in Belize (Mpower by Rootswerx) for the local libraries and for a school mini-lending-library program that they are starting. The guy with the channel is also a maker so its a bonus. He's a master builder and used to work on historical buildings in Texas and had to fabricate replacement parts. I love seeing books and school supplies that were donated in videos. Not everyone down there is camera friendly, so he can't always give on camera.