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Technology and Culture
Knopf
October 2007
On Sale: October 16, 2007
464 pages
ISBN: 0307266362
EAN: 9780307266361
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Like The Pencil, Henry Petroskiβs The Toothpick is a celebration of a humble yet elegant device. As old as mankind and as universal as eating, this useful and ubiquitous tool finally gets its due in this wide-ranging and compulsively readable book. Here is the unexpected story of the simplest of implementsβwhether made of grass, gold, quill, or woodβa story of engineering and design, of culture and class, and a lesson in how to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary. Petroski takes us back to ancient Rome, where the emperor Nero makes his entrance into a banquet hall with a silver toothpick in his mouth; and to a more recent time in Spain, where a young seΓ±orita uses the delicately pointed instrument to protect her virtue from someone trying to steal a kiss. He introduces us to Charles Forster, a nineteenth-century Bostonian and father of the American toothpick industry, who hires Harvard students to demand toothpicks in area restaurantsβthereby making their availability in eating establishments as expected as condiments. And Petroski takes us inside the surprisingly secretive toothpick-manufacturing industry, in which one small townβs factories can turn out 200 million wooden toothpicks a day using methods that, except for computer controls, havenβt changed much in almost 150 years. He also explores a treasure trove of the toothpickβs unintended uses and perils, from sandwiches to martinis and beyond. With an engineerβs eye for detail and a poetβs flair for language, Petroski has earned his reputation as a writer who explains our worldβfrom the tallest buildings to the lowliest toothpickβto us.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - October 28, 2007
Talk of the Nation - October 26, 2007
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