The Story Behind: The Extraordinary History Behind Ordinary Objects

Stories fascinate us, and knowing the story behind everyday objects changes the way we view and interact with them. This book contains fifty short histories of ordinary objects (some more everyday than others). These stories are grouped into nine parts, with each part containing histories of two to eight objects. The stories are originally part of a weekly podcast, and the book’s chapters are derived from some of these podcasts.

Each chapter is only about half a dozen pages long. The first few pages provide a historical overview, followed by a “Did You Know” paragraph which adds more trivia. A couple of bullet points are supposed to summarize the chapter in the “TL;DR” (too long, didn’t read) section. The writing style is conversational, and a chapter can be read in about five minutes. There are no references, so interested readers don’t have a starting point to explore the history deeper. The “TL;DR” section is also not always a faithful summary of the chapter. Furthermore, as the chapters are so short, there may be no need for a “TL;DR” section. Overall a good read, but readers may want to verify the information before disseminating it.