biology

Tinkers (novel)

Tinkers (novel) is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tinkers (novel) rather than just read about it. In short: Tinkers is a 2009 first novel by American author Paul Harding. The novel tells the stories of George Washington Crosby, an elderly clock repairman, and of his father, Howard.

Key takeaways

Tinkers (novel) belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tinkers (novel) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tinkers (novel) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tinkers is a 2009 first novel by American author Paul Harding. The novel tells the stories of George Washington Crosby, an elderly clock repairman, and of his father, Howard. On his deathbed, George remembers his father, who was a tinker selling household goods from a donkey-drawn cart and who struggled with epilepsy. The novel was published by Bellevue Literary Press, a sister organization of the Bellevue Literary Review. Tinkers won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among other awards and honors. The Pulitzer board called the novel "a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality."

Plot Tinkers follows George Crosby in the days before he dies, reliving his childhood memories. The book takes the reader through both George's life as well as his father's, Howard, who sells home goods from a wagon in New England. The reader learns about George's skill at fixing clocks, which becomes a metaphor for life's beauty as well as its fragility. It is about Howard's struggle with epilepsy as well as his own relationship with his father, who was a minister who fell ill when Howard was a boy. It is a novel that is not only about death, but the gift of simple pleasures of nature and being in the world. It is about fathers and sons, solitude and connection.

Reviews The Los Angeles Times praised "a writer [who] describes something so well—snow, oranges, dirt—that you can smell it or feel it or sense it in the room." The New Yorker enjoyed Harding's "skillful evocation [and] mosaic of memories". The Boston Globe called the novel a "poignant exploration of where we may journey when the clock has barely a tick or two left and we really can't go anywhere at all." The New York Times failed to review the novel before the Pulitzer Prize announcement, noting that it was the first novel since A Confederacy of Dunces in 1981 to come from a small publisher and win that award.

Awards and honors

Awards

Honors 2010 Best Novels of 2009 by Publishers Weekly and Amazon.com 2010 Best Books of 2009 by NPR and the Library Journal

Editions

Tinkers, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2009. ISBN 9781934137192 (hardcover) Tinkers, New York: HarperCollins, 2009 (international edition). ISBN 9781554689866 (paperback) Tinkers, New York: Bellevue Literary Press, 2019 (10th anniversary edition). ISBN 9781942658603 (paperback)

Notes

External links "Word of mouth helped propel Mass. novelist to Pulitzer", By Geoff Edgers, The Boston Globe, April 15, 2010 Photos of the first edition of Tinkers

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tinkers (novel)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tinkers (novel) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tinkers (novel) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tinkers (novel) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tinkers (novel)

In research: Tinkers (novel) appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tinkers (novel) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tinkers (novel) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2009 American novels, 2009 English-language novels, 2009 debut novels, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tinkers (novel) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tinkers (novel) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tinkers (novel) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tinkers (novel) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tinkers (novel) in simple terms?

Tinkers is a 2009 first novel by American author Paul Harding. The novel tells the stories of George Washington Crosby, an elderly clock repairman, and of his father, Howard.

Why does Tinkers (novel) matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tinkers (novel)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tinkers (novel).