Books - Review

A biography of Joseph Priestly who in the 18th century was one of the scientists to identify and isolate of oxygen and study its properties, although he didn't understand his discovery as well as, say, Lavoisier did. Still, he was good friends with Benjamin Franklin (kite in a thunder storm etc) and when he emigrated to US he contributed to the new scientific way of thinking.

Hmm, not as interesting as I'd hoped it might be. Bit dry, bit dull.

Six inventions that made the modern world. A history of the development of eg audio recording, artificial illumination, clocks... etc. Also some stuff about the nature of invention/development processes, eg unsung heroes etc - for instance Edison definitely did not invent the light bulb.

This was ok, but a bit dry maybe.