The Student Room Group

Cambridge Engineering Reading List 2005

Hopefully this will be helpful to people applying to study Engineering at a competitive University: my school didn't really have a clue what I could read as a help to applying to Cambridge.

In addition to the Gordon books from the below list I read "The Science of Superheroes" by Gresh and Weinberg which is quite interesting. Actually, any total over-analysis of ordinary or fictional things interests me.

New Science of Strong Materials - J.E. Gordon
Structures - J.E. Gordon
Cats' Paws and Catapults - Vogel
What Engineers Know and How They Know It - Vincenti
Flying Butresses, Entropy and O-Rings - Adams
Inverntion by Design - Petroski
How Things Work - Bloomfield
Advanced D&T - Norman, Cubitt, Urry, Whittaker
To Engineer is Human - Petroski
Remaking the World - Petroski
Why Buildings Fall Down - Levy and Salvadon
Why buildings stand up - Salvadon
Made To Measure - Ball
Small things considered - Petroski
Seven Wonders of the Industrial World - Cadbury
Backroom Boys - Spufford

Obviously not an exhaustive list, and it's pointless to read everything on it, but in an interview or personal statement it could give you an edge. "I'm really interested by entropy" is probably better than "I like maths, physics and railways".
Reply 1
mmm some of the seems interesting! Thank you! :biggrin:
Hey thanks a lot! which would you recommend the most by the way?
Reply 3
Steveee
"I like maths, physics and railways".


I do too. You can probably guess by the Avatar.
Reply 4
Thanks very much for that list, dude!

I'm definitely going to buy two or three of those...
Reply 5
Those books look so dull - "Why Buildings Stand Up" or "Why Buildings Fall Down" might be a great purchase for those with insomnia - reading these would surely put anyone to sleep! Most of those books are Civil Engineering type books.. what about books on the history of Radar or something...?

Update: Actually "What Engineers Know and How They Know It" looks a bit more interesting.
I really liked 'Structures' by Gordon, and would reccomend it :biggrin:
I've bought a few of those... how much I read though is another matter :p:
I have both the Gordon books - they're actually really interesting, and the Materials one made me think about chemistry a lot more (I owe more to him than my chemistry teacher, anyway), even though it's mostly physics based. It's nothing harder than stuff you already know, it just makes you think. Or that's what I found, at least.