Let’s address the elephant in the room: I’m twelve weeks behind on @machinepix weekly updates 😅

I’ll be picking up the regular in-depth weekly in January, but I didn’t want to end the year as yet-another-lapsed newsletter.

In 2021 I interviewed fourteen incredible engineers, creators, and writers, and I always made a point to ask them their favorite book. So to send off 2021, here is the MachinePix Holiday Reading List, curated through a year of interviews:

Frank Ippolito is the founder of Thingergy, which makes costumes, props, statues, special effects makeup, and all kind of things for epic sci fi series including Star Wars. Fitting that his favorite book this year was a space opera series, Expeditionary Force.

Laura Kampf makes and restores delightfully creative tools from unexpected scrap on her eponymous YouTube channel. Her recent favorite book was creative fiction The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon.

Dr. Steve Gass is the inventor of SawStop, a top-selling table saw and beloved by woodworkers that enjoy keeping their fingers. When he wasn’t woodworking, he was reading the epic fantasy Stormlight Archive.

fnnch is a prolific and mysterious street artist who nonetheless sat down with me to explain his artistic and technical processes. He recommended a book which became one of my favorite nonfiction reads this year, The $12 Million Stuffed Shark.

Kyle Wiens is the man behind iFixit, staunch advocate for Right to Repair, and a general pain-in-the-ass to corporate lawyers. His very-on-brand favorite book this year was The Innovation Delusion.

Milo Werner was the woman that made the Model S and Model X happen as Director of NPI for Tesla, no doubt aided by her favorite book Radical Candor.

Shyam Srinivasan is an electrical engineering who’s designed electronics for iPod, Nest, Snap, and EVs. He has an axe to grind with the fossil fuel industry and recommended Internal Combustion.

Alfred Jones is the Director of Mechanical Engineering at Peloton and formerly Fitbit and Lyft. He swears by the leadership principles of Extreme Ownership.

Abe Askenazi is the CTO of Zero Motorcycles, an EV motorcycle company and my favorite vehicle I’ve ever owned. His favorite book? The Call of the Wild.

Dorrian Porter is the CEO of Vestaboard, a company that makes a modern split-flap display (you know, those whimsical flippy displays in train stations and airports). His favorite book also evokes a sense of adventure: The Neverending Story.

Eric Migicovsky created the Pebble, the first commercially successful smartwatch, which surely made him empathize with the title of his favorite book this year: Project Hail Mary.

Will Ahmed is the CEO of high-performance wearable company Whoop. He takes inspiration from the story of Nike, documented in the book Shoe Dog.

Brian Potter is a structural engineer and the author of Construction Physics, one of my favorite technical newsletters. When we spoke about the political challenges of building housing, he recommended Neighborhood Defenders.

Jason Crawford runs the nonprofit progress studies institution Roots of Progress. He is writing his own book, The Story of Industrial Civilization—but he was quick to recommend The Beginning of Infinity.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to friends (or interesting enemies). I am always looking to connect with interesting people and learn about interesting machines—reach out!

—Kane