One man's journey to invent a product he knew nothing about.
3/1/2004
Solly Angel was an urban planner, not an engineer. So when a hotel-room vision inspired him to invent a small bathroom scale for travelers—one-quarter-inch thick and weighing one pound—the weight of the engineering and business worlds was about to burden his shoulders. This is Angel's ten-year journey to learn about engineering, design, patents, and business strategy to make his "minivision" a reality. In style and feel, Tale is like a John McPhee epic, where the reader goes from knowing nothing about shad to becoming, by the last page, a knowledgeable if perhaps boring cocktail party guest on the subject. This is a good grounding read for anyone bitten by the "I should invent that" bug. Oh, did Angel succeed? To quote the author: "Either things go according to plan, or there is a story."