How do astronauts scratch an itch?
Once again, it's time for David Feldman to plunge into that sea of question marks and conundrums known as Imponderables. These are the mysteries of everyday life. They're the questions that can't be answered by numbers, measurements, or a trip to the reference library. They're the things that drive you nuts - or that you've never thought of until someone brings them up, and then they drive you nuts. Don't you ever wonder, for instance, how astronauts scratch an itch? Or. Why blank videocassettes slide out of the backs of their boxes, while prerecorded tapes fall out of the bottom? How do skywriters learn good penmanship? From the thousands of letters, phone calls and E-mail messages he gets every year, Feldman has picked the most intriguing puzzles and gone to the experts to find the answers. In his light, bright, delightful style, he tells us not only the how and the why, but the who, what, where and when.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
A fuller profile for choosing with more confidence—not just another copy of the preview.
Nonfiction
Use these as starting points rather than limits; the most memorable books often stretch beyond their catalog labels.
No specific content concerns can be confirmed from the available English catalog information. Consult a publisher or reader-supplied guide when detailed warnings matter.
These notes are inferred from available catalog information and may not be complete. Check a publisher or reader-supplied guide if you need comprehensive warnings.
Balanced tone · Steady pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
A visual estimate based on this edition's categories, description, and length. Select a star to explore the signals.
This signal is descriptive, not a rating. It helps compare the kind of reading experience this edition may offer.
Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc
A broad estimate of the book’s emotional rhythm, shown without story events or outcomes.
This visualization is an interpretive estimate based on catalog description, categories, tone, pace, and content signals. It does not describe specific scenes.
A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-3991-4189-8
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL972091M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
- Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
- How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
More Nonfiction books
These matches combine shared categories with author, publication-era, and reading-length signals.
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Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.
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by Anne E. Desjardins
Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.
Jefferson Vindicated - Fallacies, Omissions, and Contradictions in the Hemings Genealogical Search
by Cynthia H. Burton
Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.
Monuments of Progress
by Claudia Agostoni
Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.
Prudence (Historical Romance)
by Elizabeth Bailey
Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.
Science, Technology And The German Cultural Imagination
by ENGLAND) FRAGILE TRADITION (2002 CAMBRIDGE, ENGL FRAGILE TRADITION (2002 CAMBRIDGE, David R. Midgley
Why it fits: shares Nonfiction, a similar reading length, a similar publication era.