Engineering in Plain Sight: An Illustrated Field Guide to the Constructed Environment

This is organized into 8 chapters: Electrical Grid; Communications; Roadways; Bridges & Tunnels; Railways; Dams, Levees, and Coastal Structures; Municipal Water and Wastewater; and Construction. The back of the book says you don't need an engineering background to enjoy this - overall, I'd agree, although there were parts where the author made an attempt to explain things that left me a bit lost. For example, although I appreciated the Electrical Grid chapter, at times the best I could do was accept that I wasn't going to be able to understand everything.

The title calls this a field guide, and that's where this work is strongest - if you've ever looking around at human-made structures in your town or city and wondered what they are or show more what they do, this text will likely provide a lot of insight. There's also a lot of information about hidden parts you'll likely never see (sewers, underground cables and pipes, etc.) and how those function alongside the things you can see. I've found myself approaching my morning drive differently, seeing things around me that I'd never noticed before, and I kind of wish I'd started reading this book back when some major road construction on my route had just begun.

My favorite chapters were probably the ones on roadways, municipal water and wastewater, and construction, probably because those featured things I'm most likely to be able to spot in my daily life.

The illustrations are, for the most part, excellent, and each one usually includes at least one little quirky background detail, such as a swan stealing a construction worker's lunch.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

This was a great intro to MANY engineering structures and concepts we often see in the urban landscape. Bite-sized pieces of information that made me aware of objects in the built environment along with the basic vocabulary to describe and understand them.