Read More: The Telephone Gambit

The Telephone Gambit by Seth Shulman is another book I heard about through NPR (Woo Woo Science Friday!). Basically it's the story of a researcher who starts out with the aim to write a book about Alexander Graham Bell, because he's pretty awesome, right? What would our world be like had he not invented the telephone?? Let us celebrate him! Err....

During his research Shulman stumbles across a bit of evidence that seems to indicate that Bell may have not been the inventor after all. That he perhaps stole a fellow engineer's idea (Elisha Gray's to name names). Shulman digs deeper and uncovers more and more evidence that has been overlooked and covered up for this reason and that over the years.

Does Shulman prove his theory? I think so. Unfortunately it's definitely not unusual for a scientist to be a sneaky, rotten, lying, idea thief - so I didn't need a whole lot of convincing to begin with. The real mystery for me was how in the world someone's mind could come up with how to invent a telephone in the first place. I don't care if it was Gray or Bell -- It's so amazing that people's minds can work like that! Thank goodness there are people like that out there! What if the world depended on someone like me? I think my best invention idea over the years was to replace missing toes with toothpicks and grapes.

As for the quality of writing in this book, I wasn't too impressed. I found it pretty dry and although the subject is interesting I don't believe there was enough pertinent information to base a whole book on. To fill space Shulman continually wrote about his research process, which I found more than a little annoying, especially as it exposed him as a bungling researcher. 

- Megan Leigh