4.01 AVERAGE

nikodemicek's review

2.75

Don’t expect hard science in this one. It is pretty skimmable, there is not much valuable information apart from the titles, subtitles and summaries. But it’s a decent framework worth returning to.

I must confess I had no idea who Ros Atkins was (even though I might have heard the name before), before requesting this arc. I was drawn in only by the title. The conveyance of information is deeply fascinating to me.
This is a mixture of a rather concrete how-to and anecdotes about the author's professional life. The latter I found rather intriguing and would have liked even more of. However, that was not the premise of the book. And maybe that was what didn't work well for me. Either strict guidebook or memoir, but it was too hard a task obviously to bring those two together. For that it still worked fine in the end.
The author stresses again and again that he neither considers the recipient of information stupid nor malevolant in any way, but rather unable or unwilling due to circumstances if not inclined to consume the information he presents. I guess this way of thinking might help make me feel a bit less didactic in my approach to explanations at work. And I enjoyed that about the book.
Overall I would maybe find the book helpful, was I really before a concrete task that needed a deep explanation of something. For smaller tasks the procedure seems overwhelmingly complex. (But that is just a personal impression.) The last part about e-mail communiction was especially relevant maybe to my day to day work, so I found it most engaging.
Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for providing an advanced reader copy.