Rutherford and Fry’s Complete Guide to Absolutely Everything* *Abridged is the current best seller for popular science and it’s understandable why when you read the opening chapter.

Full disclosure, when I first bought the signed book I still wasn’t convinced that this book wouldn’t be a rehash of content from other popular science books, both authors are brilliant science communicators in their own right (Note: If you haven’t already, you should check out their podcast, The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry) but I went in being weary and skeptical. My mistrust was unfounded and the book is both informative and can be entertaining at times.

From the opening chapter on the concept of the library of babel and it’s contents of all knowledge that is also indistinguishable from all the nonsense in the universe I was hooked. This was an intriguing story and the fact that the library of babel has now been created is another scientific curiosity, although there is no benefit of the library it shows the creativity of humanity.

The book traverses new scientific discoveries and is well rooted in the scientific method which it continually harkens back too, and even demonstrators the flaws that is inherent in the scientific method where bias can play a major part. The book can also be entertaining but the excessive use of movie quotes, and some attempts at humour can be too jarring and unnecessary in parts of the book but otherwise it makes what can be dry a subject into an entertaining read.

Overall, a great read and what I suspect will be a mainstay now in the popular science and any nerds bookshelf.