Description
Randall Munroe is . . .'Nerd royalty' Ben Goldacre
'Totally brilliant' Tim Harford
'Laugh-out-loud funny' Bill Gates
'Wonderful' Neil Gaiman
AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the million-selling What If? and Thing Explainer
For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole.
'How strange science can fix everyday problems' New Scientist
'A brilliant book: clamber in for a wild ride' Nature
About the Author
Randall Munroe is the creator of the webcomic xkcd and bestselling author of What If?, Thing Explainer and xkcd: Volume 0. Randall was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, and grew up outside Richmond, Virginia. After studying physics at Christopher Newport University, he got a job building robots at NASA Langley Research Center. In 2006 he left NASA to draw comics on the internet full time, and has since been nominated for a Hugo Award three times. The International Astronomical Union recently named an asteroid after him: asteroid 4942 Munroe is big enough to cause mass extinction if it ever hits a planet like Earth.
Reviews
Ridiculous, delightful and, damn it, educational * Sunday Times (Culture) *
A pure delight, a salty-sweet mixture of hard science and bonkers whimsy * Boing Boing *
Extremely accurate and often amusing answers to everyday issues * Daily Mail *
Consistently fascinating and entertaining * Wall Street Journal *
The creator of the popular, extremely excellent webcomic xkcd cleverly illustrates a guide of complicated solutions to simple tasks as common as digging a hole * USA Today *
[How To] tackles problems from the mundane-such as how to move to a new house-to those that may trouble a mad scientist building her first lava moat. The solutions are often hilariously, and purposefully, absurd. Embedded in these solutions, however, is solid scientific, engineering, and experimental understanding . . . [for] anyone who appreciates science-based solutions to life's problems * Science Magazine *
A witty, educational examination of 'unusual approaches to common tasks' . . . generously laced with dry humor . . . Munroe's comic stick-figure art is an added bonus. . . . Apart from generating laughter, the book also manages to achieve his serious objective: to get his audience thinking * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
A gleefully nerdy hypothetical instruction book for armchair scientists of all ages * Booklist *
An enjoyable treat for fans of logic puzzles, brain hacking, kaizen, mad science, and other forms of mental stimulation * Kirkus Reviews *
Required reading across the world * New York Times *
A great deal of fun * The Economist *
Fascinating * Guardian *
Book Information
ISBN 9781473680340
Author Randall Munroe
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint John Murray Publishers Ltd
Publisher John Murray Press
Weight(grams) 269g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 24mm