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3.77k reviews for:
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Randall Munroe
4.14 AVERAGE
3.77k reviews for:
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Randall Munroe
4.14 AVERAGE
funny
fast-paced
I love this book so much; I just DNF'd it this reread because I got distracted by other books and was no longer in the mood to come back to it by the time I remembered that I had started it
The first thing that comes to mind when I think of this book is "meh"--both because that is the feeling it inspires in me and because 'meh' is a quintessential late 2000's early 2010's phrase. Let me explain.
This book's hypothetical questions seem entertaining on paper, but what lets them down is the humor in the book. Only one joke (one in about 300 pages) inspired me to smile, and that's because the humor has aged poorly. It's honestly more a testament to 2000's humor than anything else. "Lol random" humor is prevalent, and it gets old pretty fast.
Also, the ungodly amount of "footnotes" is unbearable--they're supposed to be funny, but if only one joke made me laugh and there's about six footnotes per question... well, you can do the math. It's tedious.
Anywho, the questions themselves were interesting, so they bring this book up to like a 2.75/5 star read.
This book's hypothetical questions seem entertaining on paper, but what lets them down is the humor in the book. Only one joke (one in about 300 pages) inspired me to smile, and that's because the humor has aged poorly. It's honestly more a testament to 2000's humor than anything else. "Lol random" humor is prevalent, and it gets old pretty fast.
Also, the ungodly amount of "footnotes" is unbearable--they're supposed to be funny, but if only one joke made me laugh and there's about six footnotes per question... well, you can do the math. It's tedious.
Anywho, the questions themselves were interesting, so they bring this book up to like a 2.75/5 star read.
funny
informative
lighthearted
3.5 stars
A random cross section of crazy What If questions, this book takes you deep into the science of the world around us, from the tiny atomic scale to the scale of exploding stars. When I say deep science, I mean that sometimes I was so over my head I had to just let to go, but other times I was totally with it and sort of astonished by what I was even thinking about. The science is offset with good humor and pop culture references that make it super readable. Dungeons and Dragons metaphors, all kinds of ways to blow things up or turn us all to plasma, I never knew where an answer was going to lead. Was I dying to listen all the time? No. Did I have to work hard to not let my brain wander sometimes? I did. But did I enjoy it? Yep.
A random cross section of crazy What If questions, this book takes you deep into the science of the world around us, from the tiny atomic scale to the scale of exploding stars. When I say deep science, I mean that sometimes I was so over my head I had to just let to go, but other times I was totally with it and sort of astonished by what I was even thinking about. The science is offset with good humor and pop culture references that make it super readable. Dungeons and Dragons metaphors, all kinds of ways to blow things up or turn us all to plasma, I never knew where an answer was going to lead. Was I dying to listen all the time? No. Did I have to work hard to not let my brain wander sometimes? I did. But did I enjoy it? Yep.
The Audible version of this book with Wil Wheaton as the reader was very fun to listen to.
So I have loved xkcd for years. I really liked the way this book was written. It has a nice blend of comics and his brilliant mind. But, I am not sure if it is overdrive or what, but that ebook format was all messed up.
I was so entertained! Did I read this cover to cover? Nah, space questions don't really interest me so I skipped around on some of the questions, but the way they are answered are humorous, scientific, and oh look there's pictures! As soon as I finished it, I looked for book #2. Where is it!
funny
informative
medium-paced