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Materials and Design, The Art and Science of Material Selection in Product Design.

Paperback – February 17, 2014 by Michael F. Ashby (Author), Kara Johnson (Author)

"Materials are the stuff of design. This renowned book by noted materials engineering author Mike Ashby and industrial designer Kara Johnson explores the role of materials and materials processing in product design, with a particular emphasis on creating both desired aesthetics and functionality." Amazon

Chaos: Making a New Science.

James Gleick (Author). Open Road Media, 22 Mar 2011 - Science - 360 pages.

"For centuries, scientific thought was focused on bringing order to the natural world. But even as relativity and quantum mechanics undermined that rigid certainty in the first half of the twentieth century, the scientific community clung to the idea that any system, no matter how complex, could be reduced to a simple pattern. In the 1960s, a small group of radical thinkers began to take that notion apart, placing new importance on the tiny experimental irregularities that scientists had long learned to ignore." Amazon

An Introduction to Design and Culture:

1900 to the Present. Penny Sparke (Author) Routledge, 11 Feb 2013 - Design - 272 pages

"Design culture has changed dramatically in the 21st century, the designer-hero is now much less in evidence and design has become much more interdisciplinary." Amazon

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles

Paperback – March 10, 1992 by Mike Davis (Author), Robert Morrow (Photographer)

"The hidden story of L.A. Mike davis shows us where the city's money comes form and who controls it while also exposing the brutal ongoing struggle between L.A.'s haves and have-nots." Amazon

Buckminster Fuller (Design Heroes Series)

Hardcover – June 1, 1990 by Martin Pawley (Author), R. Buckminster Fuller (Author)

"Book by Pawley, Martin, Fuller, R. Buckminster" Amazon

A Revolution in the Making

3D Printing, Robots and the Future by Guy Rundle (Author) Changed my perspective on the much maligned technology of 3D printing by expounding on the context of the future of robotics and self replicating machines. Good read...

Brilliant Blunders

From Darwin to Einstein - Colossal Mistakes by Great Scientists That Changed Our Understanding of Life and the Universe - by Mario Livio (Author) Great way to refresh the achievements of Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein Good read...

The Innovator's Cookbook, Essentials for inventing what's next.

Paperback – July 26, 2012 by Steven Johnson (Author)

"Steven Johnson, author of "Where Good Ideas Come From", "Emergence", "Everything Bad is Good for You", "Mind Wide Open" and "Ghost Map", and an acknowledged bestselling leader on the subject of innovation, gathers - for a foundational text on the subject of innovation - essays, interviews, and cutting-edge insights by such exciting field leaders as Peter Drucker, Richard Florida, Eric Von Hippel, Dean Keith Simonton, Arthur Koestler, John Seely Brown, and Marshall Berman. Johnson also provides new material from Marisa Mayer of Google, Twitter's Biz Stone and Jack Dorsey, and Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's former Chief Software Architect. With additional commentary by Johnson himself, this book reveals the innovation found in a wide range of fields, including science, technology, energy, transportation, education, art, and sociology, making it vital, fresh, and fascinating reading for our time, and for the future." Riverhead Books,U.S.