Rating: 
Summary: How to beef up a book
Review: It seems obvious to me that Petroski had to beef up this book. There are some interesting design critique and stories in the book. About 2 interesting items per chapter. The rest of the book is dry musings by the author. He endlessly repeats the same idea over and over. The author even includes the notes he wrote for the chapter ideas for his book at the end to beef up the number of pages even more.If the author would have organized the bits of interesting material together I would have recommended this book. This is a boring book. I believe there is a significant market opportunity for a book of this type that is better written.
Rating: 
Summary: I Was Hoping for More
Review: Small Things Considered has two strengths: 1) It contains interesting and sometimes fascinating details about the design of everyday objects, and 2) It's easy to read and can be finished in an evening. We learn about the little-known evolution of the paper bag and the paper cup. And we get an explanation of why, annoyingly, the numbers on telephone keypads read down while on calculators, they read up. (The explanation is not particularly edifying). The book has two weaknesses as well: 1) It appears to contain a single thesis--the obvious one that all design involves tradeoffs, and 2) It suffers from an overabundance of examples, some of which are tedious. In Chapter 17, Design Hits the Wall, we slog through a seemingly interminable account of Petroski's search for a better home. We learn about his family's desire for a home with "a real office and study space and with more room for the children and on a street with less traffic." Of course, we have all been there. Professor Petroski's experience is hardly unique, and since, in the previous sixteen chapters, he has amply supported his thesis--that design requires tradeoffs--the reader is left to wonder why the house hunting example is needed.
Rating: 
Summary: a big disappointment
Review: The first impression is of an engaging and clever look at design focusing on everyday things. Unfortunately this book doesn't come anywhere near living up to expectation. It is repetitive, boring and severely lacking in insight. I read the whole thing hoping to get to the meat of it that never came. Skip this one and don't waste your time.
Rating:
Summary: This should have been a 5-star book
Review: This book is written by someone who has written other wonderful books about what it means to be an engineer. The topic of this book -- the design of everyday items -- should offer sufficient scope for another interesting book. And indeed, the book has lots of interesting information in it. The main thesis (that design is always imperfect, and the reasons why this is so) seems as if it ought to be sufficiently engaging to hold my attention through a book-length engagement with it. Alas, the book is so poorly written that it fails on all levels. I gave it three stars because it was quite educational. On the other hand, given the author's track record and the inherent interest of the topic, three stars is an enormous disappointment. Finishing the book was hard, and I would not blame anyone who just gave up. Perhaps the author had a half-book worth of content and was forced to bulk it up to make the required word count? I don't know what happened, but I can't really recommend the book unless you are desperate to know how the paper cup came to be invented.
Rating:
Summary: A Mixed Bag: Some Good Stuff, Some Boring Stuff
Review: This book on various aspects of design is indeed a mixed bag in the sense that a wide variety of topics are discussed from the design viewpoint. The writing is very clear and often witty. Unfortunately, some of the subject matter and its presentation is rather boring and, from my perspective anyway, uninteresting. These boring runs are interspersed with quite interesting ones as well as useful historical digressions. In view of the diversity of the items discussed, I suspect that parts that I found boring will be found interesting by other readers, and vice versa. My advice to potential readers of this book: browse it very carefully before buying it or reading it.
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