Bottom line: this is a truly enjoyable book that ultimately succeeds in shedding light on complex things in the world that we may not have paused to consider (submarines, ICBMs and various space travel vehicles) in depth. This lack of consideration may variously result from the inherent complexity of some things (nuclear power plants) or their ubiquity (pens, pencils, roads and bridges).
Randall Munroe compiled his own list of the 1000 most common words (presumably in American English) to use as the lexicon to explain a bunch a stuff. The illustrations are wonderful; crisp line drawings that vary in detail from the conceptual (human organs generally as bags) to the highly detailed. In some cases they are complete visual metaphors, presumably because the limitations in available vocabulary led to limitations in the accompanying picture.
This book contains content from my own professional background, so I was delighted to see content pulled from the worlds of naval weapons, space systems and modern information technology. Because of this, I can confirm that even with limited vocabulary, he gets those things explained correctly.
Anybody who has worked as technical writer trying to glean information from subject matter experts for later use in a user guide or other materials designed for non-experts will appreciate what Munroe has done here. Anybody who has ever prepared materials for consumption by elected or appointed government officials will also totally appreciate the challenge he takes on.
Interspersed throughout --in the same simple language-- are short comments that are sometimes insightful, sometimes funny, and they will be instantly familiar to readers of his xkcd web comic.
However, don't read this in one sitting. You might find yourself haunted by this thought: "Randall, you tell us in the intro that eventually you picked your own 1000 words based on a review of multiple lists. The addition (or substitution) of 50 to 100 more could have really taken moved some of the explanations from the highly metaphorical to the more concrete (to his credit, the "things" are "correctly" named in the table of contents).
Great fun for the alpha geeks and curious kids in your life...and just in time for holiday shopping.
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About the author
Simple Explanations of How Things Work - Teeny Tiny Print and Oversimplifying Annoying at Times
Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe is a amusing, but informative book on how many things works. From simple things like pencils, to complicated things like a Nuclear Reactor, Munroe explains everything in simple terms while using detailed drawings. Humor is peppered throughout the book, so the explanations aren't so textbook like, and the explanations are easy enough for a parent to be able to explain to their kid without having to resort to complicated terms.While I enjoyed this book, I found two things that bothered me just slightly. The first thing is that the font in this book is exceedingly tiny. While I have no problems reading it, showing it to my parents proved painful - the font is just so tiny, my mom needed to use a magnifying glass to read. The other thing that bothered me is the over simplification of literally everything in this book. While I don't need to know the exact name of every component in a computer or the name of the tube that brings air to my lungs, it would've been nice to have the exact term should I decided to look up more about it later. Also, simplifying words such as rabbits (long-ear jumpers) and snakes (long biters without arms or legs) is really annoying. My kids had no idea what some terms meant because they are simply too young (Land of the Rising Sun = Japan).Despite the minor flaws, this book was a lot of fun to go through, particularly with our kids. It's a fun book to get kids interested in looking deeper into how things work, and a great book for parents who are trying to explain how some items work without resorting to saying "I don't know" or "the elves living in the microwave power it".
Top reviews from other countries
Oleg L.
Ein wunderbares und spaßiges Buch
Reviewed in Germany on September 15, 2024
