Your Life Is Manufactured, Making Numbers Count & Get Sh*t Done 3 Books Collection Set

by Tim Minshall, Karla Starr Chip Heath, Chartwell Books

Please Note That The Following Individual Books As Per Original UK ISBN and UK EDITION Cover Image In this Listing shall be

Titles In This
Your Life Is Manufacture [Hardcover]
Making Numbers Count [Paperback]
Get Sh*t Done [Paperback]

Your Life Is Manufactured, Making Numbers Count & Get Sh*t Done 3 Books Collection

Your Life Is Manufactured [Hardcover]:
From an award-winning and internationally-renowned expert, a wonderfully illuminating journey through the world of manufacturing and its transformational influence on our lives - and the world around us. 'An extraordinarily good read . . . Minshall leads us gently through all the stages necessary to produce all our 'stuff' . . . it also made me laugh out loud.

Making Numbers
Understanding numbers is essential—but humans aren’t built to understand them. Until very recently, most languages had no words for numbers greater than five—anything from six to infinity was known as “lots.” While the numbers in our world have gotten increasingly complex, our brains are stuck in the past. How can we translate millions and billions and milliseconds and nanometers into things we can comprehend and use?

Get Sh*t
With the overwhelming presence of smart phones, the internet, and social media, our attention is under unprecedented attack. If you want to achieve anything beyond the minimal, it’s more important than ever that you learn how to focus your brain on what’s in front of you, while keeping an eye on your future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Technology, Business, Economics, History, Audiobook

Paperback

Published June 13, 2025

Reviews

[Peter Tillman]

Nominated for the Royal Society Book Prize for 2025, for the best new popular science books. The Chair of the judging panel wrote:
"This book is amazing! I’ll never look at a tea kettle in the same way again, ever. Or toilet paper, for that matter. It’s an extraordinary book about how much we depend on systems we don’t see for the everyday things that we do."

[Annikky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very nice book, you can tell that the author knows the topic well and is used to explaining manufacturing to stupid people. It is very accessible and not very long. Which was, kind of, my personal problem with it. Not that I didn’t learn anything new, I’m not a manufacturing expert, but I would have welcomed a bit more depth and detail. This is not the fault of the book - if you are looking for a light, slightly humorous, gently educational read/listen, this is a good bet. But as this was recommended by FT, I was expecting something a bit more thorough.

[Caro · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Isabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating view of the manufacturing world. Who would say that engineering could be so captivating?? Furthermore, it is a call to action to more rational production, transport and consumption, all needed to save the world from certain doom. Not to be missed.

[Elaine Mawbey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read! Accessible. It makes me even more passionate about waste reduction and the circular economy. A more extensive review will (hopefully) follow shortly.

[Adam K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Tim Minshall, Head of the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge, presents an easy to understand book about the world of manufacturing. In many ways, this book reads like a textbook for high school or early college students. Minshall maintains a playful and inquisitive tone as he explains concepts, technologies, or processes that are integral to creating the products that we come in contact with every moment of our daily lives.

The book is broken down into several chapters that include discussions about the harvesting of raw materials, how those materials are processed in a production plant/factory, the complicated logistics of moving and transporting mass amounts of goods, how companies know what consumers want, how technological advances have changed manufacturing over time, the massive impact of the internet, and the ways manufacturing can harm people and the planet if we are not careful.

As someone who is nominally aware of the complexities of the manufacturing world, I found this book to be a good introduction to many of the core concepts contained within. Some may find several of the facts to be surprising or even alarming, but Minshall is careful to keep the tone of the book optimistic. He hammers home his point that manufacturing is a good thing, and it is integral to our society. We must be careful to prevent it from becoming harmful, but there are many people, technologies, and policies already in place to mitigate potential damage (though he cautions that there is still a lot of work to be done).

Part of me wants to accuse him of being too optimistic, but I get the feeling that the impetus of this book is to inspire young people to dream of a better world while helping tip things in that direction through manufacturing. One of my other criticisms, though, is that the book can be a little confusing structurally as he can meander from point to point a little.

If you're completely new to the world of manufacturing and would love to know more, I think this book could be a good place to start.

[Lawrence Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

On this year's always brilliant Royal Society pop-science shortlist. Though I be a delicate, gentle, literature loving soul I have spent most of my working life at the coal face of manufacturing - cars, car bits, milling, grinding, automation, software, food and beverage, turbines etc. As Minshall says, look around your room? Unless you are see a kitty, family member, spider you lovingly allow to live in the corner etc every single thing in your field of vision was manufactured. Yet most of us, unless we actually enter a factory daily, have next to no knowledge of what this entails in 2025. Including little knowledge of the political, geo-political, cultural, sociological, economic and - most crucially - environmental - consequences of all this.

In 2020 Covid suddenly shocked us all into the realisation that we - gulp - buy all our stuff in some place we couldn't even locate on a map. How did that happen then? Minshall tells us. But fear not, Minshall does not (though I suspect he could) bore you rigid with the minutiae of TQM (Total Quality Management) Six Sigma or any fiendishly detailed industrial attempts to become 000.1% more efficient. Instead the book locates manufacturing in all those contexts I just mentioned and stresses the vital need to make manufacturing - the 2nd highest source of CO2 emissions - more sustainable and how this could be done. It was my decades of experience in manufacturing that led me to the donteatthat, dontbuythat, cantwerepairthis?, wherewasthismade? grumpy environmentalist I am today.

The book is clearly structured and entertaining. Minshall is (deep breath) Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge, Head of the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), Head of the IfM’s Centre for Technology Management plus Heads of other impressive things - a top-notch academic sharing his vast knowledge with us accessibly for a mere 14.99€.

There is a lovely little appendix at the back listing all the components and processes that make the book. Never seen that before.

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insanely hyped, but ended up being a let down ;/

1. The writing itself is very good, the "flow" is natural, the "story" feels natural and makes a good, not-so-engaging background while you're running or pedaling
2. But there's surprisingly little knowledge here, unless you're 100% lay(wo)man with no curiosity - as the most things you learn here are obvious, rather obvious or maybe not so obvious, but not really interesting.
3. YES, there are some interesting numbers and anecdotes, but honestly - not more than 3-4 fragments with them.
4. The book is trying to be absolutely non-controversial and follows the mainstream thinking - or rather: what used to be the mainstream thinking. What does it mean in practice? It completely ignores concepts like e/acc (that claim that scientific and industrial process is the way to solve many of scarcity, inefficiency, polution problems) or de-globalization of world economy
5. The cherry of the top was the chapter on sustainability -> extremely naive, completely ignores interpretations like "tragedy of the commons" and does not propose anything ...
6. Don't expect in-depth analysis of supply chains, their bottlenecks, or e.g., economical comparisons of alternative scenarios (e.g., what would have to happen to make local production viable over half-of-the-planet-far imports)
7. There's nothing on mass-industrialization of not-that-long-time-ago production - e.g., food production -> the case of soya beans could be super-interesting, etc.

Long story short. I was not only disappointed, but maybe even a slight offended - this book's ROI is dramatically low.

[Tina G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought the book because I believe it’s a good idea to bring back some shine to manufacturing and also because the author had the potential to be an authority in the field.
Unfortunately the book does not manage to really make manufacturing exciting and seems to be written as a school book for adolescence that need simplifications and repetitions of main topics. It is also very focused on the UK - in the example of the Covid vaccines it only talks about AZ.
I read on because I expected some good ideas on sustainability seeing as it was just released in 2025 when sustainability is being questioned… but ideas were generic.
I did like that the author has a table for how the book was manufactured. That was a nice idea..even if I probably bought a paperback so it did not apply to the book I had in my hand.

[David Hambling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very interesting background of manufacturing, some good hooks and gives a nice bird's-eye view of various different types of manufacturing.

Loses a star for the second half where it really falls off. Having explained how manufacturing has become a world-devouring monster via the magic of capitalism and the demand for constant growth and built-in obsolescence, there is a rather naive idea that hey, if we completely rework it we can stp destroying the planet and save it. The problem is, pretty much any company given the choice between making more profit or saving the world will choose the former, because that's their job. "A capital idea requiring merely the assent of the world's oligarachs"

[Theodoulos Hadjimatheou · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Your Life Is Manufactured” by Tim Minshall is a compelling deep dive into the hidden processes that shape our daily lives. Minshall brings his expertise and insights from a range of industries and examples, that that uncover and simplify the complexity behind objects we use or interact with everyday.

The book offers a very interesting perspective on how modern manufacturing systems operate. Through insightful case studies and personal anecdotes, Minshall highlights how manufacturing is contributing to the challenges our planet is facing today, but also provides hope that manufacturing will be the solution to these problems!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up a lot of interesting terminology while reading this book, but perhaps the most apt phrase was 'illusion of explanatory depth.' This book is not really eye-opening - most of its contents is familiar stuff - but what it does well is go deeper into manufacturing processes and logistics to provide more than the superficial knowledge that most of us have at out fingertips. In some ways, I was disappointed at how it wasn't especially revelatory, and in other ways, I was amazed by how little time I've dedicated to thinking more deeply about manufacturing, given how intrinsic it is to everyday life.

[SJS Edmonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Minshall has spent a lot of time studying and interacting with the world of manufacturing across the world. His book is essential reading for manufacturers and for those just wanting to know more about manufacturing and how important it is. This is no dry textbook about the subject, Tim’s style of writing is completely engaging, one reviewer said she learnt something new on every page, I can understand that review. For me, it awakened my own depth of manufacturing knowledge which was really enjoyable. A thoroughly good book.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Your Life Is Manufactured is clearly written with a very young audience in mind, perhaps ages 10–14. The subject matter is presented so simply that it offers little to readers who already follow current events or even just read a daily newspaper. Moreover, many of the themes have been explored in countless history and economics books, ad nauseam, leaving this work feeling derivative rather than original. While it may serve as a gentle introduction for beginners, it lacks the depth and freshness to engage a more informed audience

[Josh McFarland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good entry into the world of manufacturing for those who aren't familiar with it. For those familiar with manufacturing, I would say it's a fun, conversational read with interesting case studies and relevant new technologies (at least new at the time of writing this) and adds an appreciation of where our manufacturing world has come from and where it needs to go to ensure sustainable development.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started out good and provided some interesting insight into global supply chains. I was hoping it would delve deeper into said topics but it remained very surface-level throughout. A well-written and accessible book but I lost interest.

[Ain Ashura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook but of course Goodreads has not added that yet to the list :P

[Hitesh Mehta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting (in the broadest definition of the term) and well explained.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reads too much like a book trying to excite teenagers about environmental issues.

[Sarah Jeffries · Rating 4 out of 5]

Allergic to not crying when reading cause even this got me

[Hamza Ashraf · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very very entry level book. I would recommend it to a late-stage high school student!

[Kerry Hullett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be compulsory reading for everyone before they start their christmas shopping this year

[Agnieszka Suliga · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately very superficial, not a lot of substance, I wish the topic was more in-depth, very few interesting anecdotes. The covered topics are very obvious.

[Budd Margolis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our lives are linked by what we make and consume.
This is the best book on how everything works and how we must change, improve and create sustainable systems.
A credible and worthy effort this!!