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Informative, but slightly longer than it needed to be to convey the relevant information. It contained a lot of lists which would grow outdated over time (for example, comparisons and evaluations of worm composters which were available at the time of publishing). References were provided at the end, but not linked to from the text, which made some of the claimed benefits of vermiculture a little less credible. The book was slightly too evangelical at times to be credible either.

Compelling, easy reading, builds up well and then ends all too suddenly. Could have done with a bit more information about the rest of Newton’s life after he gets the counterfeiter.

Entertaining the whole way through, and a fast read. Some of the descriptions of places were a little fanciful and didn’t hold my attention long enough for me to get all the puns. Good twist.

Informative, easy to follow. A good coverage of technical rope rescue techniques.

Three ideas in one, none of which get particularly in-depth treatment. His coverage of psychiatric conditions has not stood the test of time, and I believe is now quite old-fashioned and simplistic. The side-story about the CIA, two jobs and a criminal syndicate is a little too convenient to believe. His treatment of women (and fascination with breasts) is not appropriate any more.

Entertaining and engaging. A good introduction to many of the concepts, with interesting anecdotes and citations. Never goes into much depth behind any of the theories or history, though.

Boy is an Eagle Scout. Boy has some ill-explored family issues. Boy’s family emigrate. Boy miraculously and almost-single-handledly sets up a successful farm from bare rock. Disaster happens for convenient reasons. Tens of thousands dead; no problem to our boy. Boy rebuilds. Boy gets bored and goes exploring. Finds an alien race ten pages from the end of the book. Has a burst appendix. Alien race aren’t mentioned again after miraculously saving him from a plot situation he should never have got into. Father tells boy to go to university and actually learn something. Boy disagrees; remains hillbilly (but, importantly, an Eagle Scout).

Reader wonders how this was ever published.

A good read. A varied collection of mountain rescue anecdotes, each with a lesson to learn, but none written to preach.

Starting out even-handed and getting more biased, I think the first half of the book is stronger than the second. The book clearly presents facts about driven grouse shooting, and makes a comprehensive case against it, while also clearly covering the history and development of the practice and the movement against it.

The second half of the book is a bit less clear, being presented as a diary. The ending (a possible future, post-grouse-shooting) is a bit fanciful and doesn’t add much, being completely unreferenced.

Informative and followable, but lacking in diagrams.

Clear, brief, maybe suffers from name-dropping too many people without context (but that’s hard to get right in such a deliberately short book).

Clear, engaging, included the right amount of science, context and personal history, and covered his life with balance — the good and the bad.

Clear, mostly unambiguous calculations with plenty of context and relation to real life. It’s now 10 years out of date, so many of its calculations are no longer up to date, and many of its suggestions are now less applicable. Still, a readable introduction to the area with good general principles and advice for all comers.

Some interesting concepts, but I never really got over my irritation with how stupid the characters seemed to be in the first third of the book. Why do they have to lie and conceal things from each other for so long? It made the concept of historians travelling back in time to observe history less convincing, since they seemed so completely unprepared and out of their depth. The ending improved the book overall, and wrapped things up very neatly, but I feel it dragged on a few hundred pages too many to get to that point.

A quick read. A nice balance of general overview and clear explanations of physics concepts, but without too much depth to be confusing. Nice asides on politics.

Several concepts were repeated between chapters (such as explaining what a black hole is, or explaining what the LHC is), which I found a bit tedious; but I guess that’s unavoidable with the approach of answering one question per chapter in a self-contained way.