Nate Silver (2012)

An essential book for anyone concerned with “big data” or any aspect of science of forecasting. Silver casts an experienced (and somewhat jaundiced) eye over a range of commonly-encountered forecasts, including politics (his own main area), poker, finance, and climate change. In each area he manages both to convince that forecasts can be made to good effect — and to demolish many of the current practices one finds in these areas. On the way he discusses Bayesian statistics, the psychology of a good forecaster (be a “fox,” not a “hedgehog”), how to spot bias, and gives some critical advice that would be of useful to anyone looking to apply such techniques. Should be required reading for all science PhD students.

5/5. Finished Tuesday 17 February, 2026.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Lewis Dartnell (2014)

I’m hard-put to classify this book. On the one hand it’s an engaging and valiant attempt to illustrate the crafts that would need to be retained (or rediscovered) after a civilisational collapse – or at least after one kind of collapse such as a pandemic that leaves the infrastructure intact by decaying rather than pulverised. Dartnell seems to think a more fierce collapse would be unsurvivable, and so focuses on the more positive possibility.

He traverses a lot of technologies, including for agriculture, building, transportation, clothing, chemistry, and communications. He (correctly in my view) identifies the scientific method itself as the most valuable technology to retain, and explores some of the ways in which modern society is contingent on specific historical accidents that a re-booting society need not copy.

But it’s also frustrating. As a scientist and engineer I wanted more detail: perhaps there’s a need for another, “how to” manual alongside this book. And Dartnell seems to have a very cavalier attitude towards safety, mentioning and understating the dangers of (for example) lye once and then making use of it extensively, which is a recipe for disaster on the part of any practitioners. And the book is a little too broad, rather than focusing on the technologies of immediate relevance in the aftermath of disaster: should we really be thinking about building vacuum-tube electronics when even basic agriculture is such a challenge?

Despite the positivity on display, reading this confirmed my thinking that a recovery after a disaster would be protracted, with no way to avoid a return to feudalism and warring bands. In that sense technology would be the least of the survivors’ worries.

3/5. Finished Saturday 22 November, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Adam Smyth (2024)

A fascinating history of bookbinding and printing. You may have to be fanatical about your books and book technology to fully enjoy it – but I certainly did.

There are plenty of vignettes and personalities on offer, alongside a deep understanding of the history that accepts the boundaries of what’s knowable. The value we place on certain books shifts with time, with Shakespeare’s First Folio simply being one amongst many when it is first printed. And the notion of canonical texts can be fluid, with several often entirely different editions of Hamlet to choose from, as well as an active sub-culture of after-market book repurposing ending in modern zines and found-media works.

The most fascinating aspect for me was the way that some books have been lost and are known only through commentaries on them that (perversely) survived – and some are known through having been cut-up and re-used as parts of the bindings of other books, for example to make covers essentially from papier mâché, from which they have been recovered during re-binding.

The style can be a bit annoying in places, a mispaced need for levity that comes across as far too heavy-handed and trite. But overall this is a great read, equally full of information and entertainment.

5/5. Finished Thursday 13 November, 2025.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)