How to Make the World Add Up

Tim Harford is one of the finest writers of nonfiction. This is another brilliant read: wise, humane and, above all, illuminating. Nobody is better on statistics and numbers - and how to make sense of them -- Matthew Syed, author of REBEL IDEAS We live in a world that is awash with statistics, but what should we do when someone makes a claim that they say is based on data? This wise book, distilled from years of experience, gives us the ten commandments, from first examining our feelings, to finally having the humility to admit we may be wrong. Priceless -- Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter If you aren't in love with stats before reading this book, you will be by the time you're done. Powerful, persuasive, and in these truth-defying times, indispensable -- Caroline Criado Perez, author of INVISIBLE WOMEN An immensely enjoyable guide to using statistics wisely. I loved it -- Matt Parker, author of HUMBLE PI He's a genius at telling stories that illuminate our world -- Malcolm Gladwell How often do you read a blurb that says 'this book is so timely' or 'now more than ever we need a book like this'? But I promise you, by all that I hold sacred, this has never been truer of any book than it is of HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP. We are supremely lucky to have the fabulously readable, lucid, witty and authoritative Tim Harford to remind us why facts, reason, numbers, clarity and truth matter, how beautiful they are and how crucial to our understanding of the natural world and human society. Without the kind of purity and honesty of approach that he stands for the world is doomed. Every politician and journalist should be made to read this book, but everyone else will get so much pleasure and draw so much strength from the joyful way it dispels the clouds of deceit and delusion -- Stephen Fry