I’m excited to announce that on 17 September, my new book will be published in the UK and around the world by Bridge Street Press. How To Make The World Add Up is my effort to help you think clearly about the numbers that swirl all around us.
Over the past 13 years of presenting More or Less I’ve come to realise that this clear thinking is only rarely a matter of technical expertise. Instead, it requires an effort to overcome our biases, set aside our preconceptions, and see beyond our emotional reactions. We need to be open-minded without being gullible, maintaining a healthy scepticism without lapsing into corrosive cynicism. Above all, we need to keeep being curious.
I loved writing the book, trying to understand the heroes and villains of statistics, from Florence Nightingale to John Maynard Keynes. There are some strange cameos from an art forger, an erotic dancer, several alchemists and a whole phalanx of storks. I hope you’ll like it too.
(If you’re reading this in North America… sorry. The book won’t be out until February 2021, albeit with the quicker-to-say title of “The Data Detective.”)
Now comes the request for a favour… If you pre-order a copy of the book from your favourite bookseller, other people are more likely to discover it: bookshops will order more copies and place them more prominently.
So please consider doing that, for example from:
Hive — Amazon — Blackwell’s — Waterstones
And one more treat… the brilliant folks at MathsGear are selling signed first editions of the book.