The Invention of Air

Interesting read. The book is somewhat split in half. Half of it tries to use the life of the protagonist as a way to explore the triggers of a “run” of innovations, while the final portion focus, in a much more fragmented and less thorough way on his relationship to questions of faith, politics, and the US. It felt a little hurried and stretched in the second half and too much time was spent on trying to laud Priestley's important role, rather than dig deeper into some of the encounters and issues involved.