Simon Winchester’s structural trick is the whole pleasure: each section of the book is labelled with the accuracy it describes, starting at a tenth of an inch — John “Iron-Mad” Wilkinson boring cannon barrels straight enough to make Watt’s steam engine possible — and tightening by factors of a thousand until it arrives at transistors. It also stops to argue that ultra-precision can cost you craftsmanship. Published in the US as The Perfectionists.