Parachutes How They Work

Here’s a long, quirky, ironic blurb you can use:

Parachutes: How They Work (1972)
By Eloise Engle — Longmans Canada Limited
ISBN: None (because 1972 was simpler), Condition: Used, as sold by Crappy Old Books

Strap in—preferably with something sturdier than the binding on this well-travelled volume—because Parachutes: How They Work is about to whisk you back to an era when diagrams were hand-drawn, safety advice was optional, and the future of falling gracefully from great heights felt genuinely optimistic.

Eloise Engle, whose name alone sounds like someone born to explain controlled plummeting, guides you through the physics, the fabric, and the faint sense of existential dread that accompanies any activity involving leaping from a perfectly functional aircraft. Across its pages (some of which may or may not be clinging to the spine with admirable determination), Engle demystifies the parachute with the earnest authority only the 1970s could produce—a decade when every diagram looked like it belonged in a school textbook and every photo involved someone smiling far more confidently than the equipment warranted.

This particular copy—rescued, resurrected, and retailed by the fearless team at Crappy Old Books—has lived several lives, all of them slightly frayed. It carries the comforting aroma of vintage paper meets mild basement, along with the telltale patina of knowledge that has been read, re-read, dropped, possibly parachuted with, and then read again. Expect character. Expect charm. Expect at least one page corner folded by someone contemplating the meaning of gravity.

Inside, you’ll learn everything you didn’t know you needed to know about the art of descending: canopy shapes, chute behaviour, airflow, and the timeless truth that no matter how clever the engineering, the ground is still waiting. Engle’s prose is clear, bright, and encouraging in a way that makes you think skydiving might actually be a good idea—a feeling you should probably interrogate.

Whether you’re a collector of oddball technical manuals, a connoisseur of retro instructional earnestness, or simply someone who enjoys owning books whose life stories are longer than their print runs, this battered-but-brave relic deserves a spot on your shelf. It’s informative. It’s unintentionally funny. It’s 1970s Canada in book form. And best of all, it’s gloriously ISBN-free, just like nature (or at least Longmans Canada) intended.

Take the leap. The parachute—like this book—probably still works.

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