THE EVOLUTION OF USEFUL THINGS : How Everyday Artifacts--From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers--Came to Be as They Are <i> Henry Petroski (Alfred A. Knopf: $24; 289 pp.) </i>

Attention, shoppers: What do the terms “automatic continuous clothing closure,” “clasp lockers and unlockers,” “slide fasteners,” and “automatic hook and eye” have in common? All are descriptions, now obsolete, of essentially the same thing: the zipper, one of those simple, mundane inventions that we’ve long taken for granted. In fact, the zipper is neither simple nor mundane, as its history--chock full of wrong turns, missed opportunities and unexpected roadblocks--attests. You might think, too, that the zipper is approaching its evolutionary zenith, but that’s an idea with which Duke University engineering professor Henry Petroski disagrees: The central thesis of “The Evolution of Everyday Things” is that failure, not necessity, is the mother of invention, meaning that somebody, somewhere, has found today’s zipper wanting and is already working to improve or replace it.

You don’t like academic theories? Not to worry: Petroski weaves wonderfully odd facts into this book, such as Birmingham, England’s, producing 500 different kinds of hammers in 1867 (Karl Marx used this example of specialization to support his economic theories), and that silver sets in 1926 could contain as many as 146 distinct utensils (Herbert Hoover, secretary of commerce at the time, produced a report suggesting that future services be limited to 55 items). The best thing about this book, though, is the way Petroski makes us pay attention to ordinary objects, objects so elegantly crafted that they initially seem quite dull. The same can be said of Petroski’s “The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance,” newly issued in paperback (Knopf: $15) and which, like “The Evolution of Useful Things,” is just the ticket for the technophile on your gift list.