The latest book releases for curious minds

THE WORLD’S FIRS T ROLLERCOAS TER: AND OTHER AMA ZING INVENTIONS

LAUGH AND LEARN WITH THESE COMIC-STRIP HISTORIES

AUTHOR MIKE BARFIELD ILLUSTRATOR FRANZISKA HÖLLBACHER PUBLISHER TEMPLAR PUBLISHING PRICE £10.99 / $15.78

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You can’t go wrong with cool facts and funny comic strips, so author and illustrator dream team Mike Barfield and Franziska Höllbacher are off to a pretty good start with The World’s First Rollercoaster: and Other Amazing Inventions. It charts the greatest inventions from the last century or so – and when we say ‘greatest’, we don’t necessarily mean the inventions that have significantly furthered our species. In fact, fun inventions like the rollercoaster, the hamburger, skateboards and video games take more of a precedent over the likes of electric vehicles and smartphones. This is where Höllbacher and Barfield have the most fun. There’s a full-page comic strip for every item on the contents page, giving a history of the people behind the invention and their world-famous ideas.

Some are a little more out there, like the ‘invention’ of the dog, which was domesticated over the course of the last 10,000 years or so, the history of which has been distilled into a single silly-yet-informative comic strip. But even the more conventional inventions have been injected with good humour and an interesting angle. Instead of telling us how Carl Benz built the world’s first petrol-drive automobile in 1885, Barfield has veered slightly off course to talk about Benz’s wife, Bertha, who achieved her own firsts with Carl’s invention and without whom we wouldn’t even know the name Benz in the world of motoring. If you want to learn more about that, you’ll just have to read the book. We promise you it’s well worth it. The World’s First Rollercoaster: and Other Amazing Inventions is as amusing as it will be interesting to anyone of any age, and by the end you’ll be sure to have learned a thing or two you never even considered about some of your favourite inventions in the world.

“There’s a full-page comic strip for every item”