Imagination and a Pile of Junk

''In his whistle-stop tour of inventions large and small, the scientist Trevor Norton shares the Gershwins'' view that invention is fundamentally comic.'' The Sunday Times

Trevor Norton, who has been compared to Gerard Durrell and Bill Bryson, weaves an entertaining history with a seductive mix of eureka moments, disasters and dirty tricks.

Although inventors were often scientists or engineers, man...