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alykat_reads's review against another edition
4.0
This was an interesting surface level breakdown of some statistics, which I love. There were a lot of topics covered in this, many of which I am very interested in looking more at in depth. The topics were all over in range - from the pyramids in Egypt to cows to wars to cars to pandemics. This isn't a book to get detailed info about any of these topics, but a nice surface level skim of various statistics. The short summary of each does leave a little to be desired, and can result in a manipulation of some of the statistics he provides, without the detailed information of how those numbers were obtained and how they are being applied. I listened to this and did not have access to the PDF that was referenced constantly, which may provide more of this information and/or a little more clarity on some of that.
rhyslindmark's review against another edition
2.0
Like Rosling's Factfulness, but worse.
If you want Smil's best work, check out Energy & Civilization. If you want something simple like a 71-point BuzzFeed quiz, look to a different author.
If you want Smil's best work, check out Energy & Civilization. If you want something simple like a 71-point BuzzFeed quiz, look to a different author.
daniellesalwaysreading's review against another edition
2.0
The numbers do seem to lie when lots of stuff is ignored.
moorelaborate's review against another edition
3.0
Light read that covers a broad array of topics that the author has interest or knowledge about. Since the takes are short, they can't be exhaustive, but they are still informative and mostly fun. Occasionally feels like a blog, in that the author opines or editorializes which can be either good or bad depending, but I would have rather something more dry weirdly enough.
niketsheth's review against another edition
4.0
Each chapter is like a small crash course on a particular topic. Sometimes the topic feel rushed but in the end it's a good way to start thinking in similar terms. Some of the chapters like electric cars, America's economy were an eye opener and gave a new perspective to my way of seeing things.
clmccart's review against another edition
3.0
despite a terrible title (evidenced by the fact that Smil felt the need to dedicate the entire epilogue to walking it back), this book was full of fun tidbits. devoid of any real context, i wouldn’t find anything in this book compelling enough to form opinions around but it gave a lot of interesting perspectives.
jessiejessj's review against another edition
informative
fast-paced
4.0
This book was given to me by my work, and at the time I wasn’t at all interested in it. However, I really enjoyed it compared to what I was expecting. I thought it would be boring and a total drag, but I read the book quite quickly on the days I actually wrote it, and I learned a lot. For a book I wouldn’t have picked out for myself, I really quite liked it!
mdross1's review against another edition
2.0
I’m glad that the epilogue clarified that this was, essentially, a collection of blog posts, because it has the thematic cohesion of a collection of blog posts. None of them individually was earth-shattering or revelatory, but as a whole it was a bit of a disorienting mess of points.
I wanted to read this book hoping to at least pick up some ‘fun facts’ but I’m not sure I’ve even done that.
I wanted to read this book hoping to at least pick up some ‘fun facts’ but I’m not sure I’ve even done that.