Book ideas, free for the taking! My only ask is: if you end up writing this book, please send me one autographed copy.
I have a half-baked idea for a book about people and their relationship with their tools: how they chose their tools, how they use their tools, how they bond with their tools, and how their tools are changed over time to meet their needs. (And possibly how people change over time because of their tools: not in an evolutionary biology sense, but in the sense of “when I started using this tool, I found myself doing these things”.)
My vision of this book is a sort of sequel to Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn (affiliate link) but for tools: How Tools Learn if you will.
Some examples of the sort of things I’m thinking about:
- A Romance on Three Legs (affiliate link) obviously got me thinking in this direction, so you could spend some time talking about Gould and CD318. (There’s also some interesting stuff about Verne Edquist and the evolution of his piano tuning toolbox.) But what about other musicians: Horowitz and his piano, Louis Armstrong and his trumpets, Clapton’s guitars, Wendy Carlos’s Moog, Zappa’s Synclavier, and the list goes on.
- You could probably get a chapter out of prominent computer folks and their setups. Followers of TJIC know what he uses for his work, and I’m pretty sure information about Linus Torvalds and esr is easy to come by. But why do they set them up the way they do? What are their motivating factors beyond “make my work as easy as possible”? Maybe bring in some writers and their setups, like Roddenberry’s custom CP/M system or Jerry Pournelle’s computers?
- Photographers, their cameras, and their camera bags. I’ve written a little about this before.
- Old-time African big-game hunters and their guns?
- Writers and their typewriters, like Cormac McCarthy’s Lettera 32 Olivetti. (“Twain had his customized, though, by replacing the treadle with a handle.“)
- Woodworkers and machinists, and their tool chests. Something like The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, maybe.
- NASCAR/Formula 1 mechanics and high-end car tuners? Maybe this guy?
I don’t know what the conclusions would be: I figure those would evolve as the book takes form. I do think it’d be a interesting book to read, and a fun book to write.