Lora Gunning

As a self-taught architectural drafter and designer, this book was absolutely priceless to me in the early years of my career when I did all my own gravity-load engineering for single family homes, 20 years before I owned my first computer and at least 25 years before I had access to the software programs now available. The book was a Christmas gift to me in, geez, 1980? It also helped me to understand how to trace gravity loads down thru a building and to learn how to manipulate my plans so as to avoid having beams holding up beams holding up posts holding up beams, thus saving my clients a LOT of money in labor and materials. I lost my copy of the book in a basement flood in 2010, and while I hadn't used the book for a decade or more, it hurt to throw it out with all the rest of the molded and ruined items. I'm close to retiring now and will likely never need to use the book again, but damn, this book allowed to to launch and build my career. I may buy a brand new one just to have it around...