Sometimes, reading about an unfamiliar subject can be difficult if the material is not written in an interesting way. Naturally, for me, like most people, my personality gravitates towards fiction because the plot can always change on a whim depending on the author’s personality. However, I still find nonfiction books appealing, just not the generic books. For me, the generic books just drone on and on. What If? was one of the first nonfiction books that really appealed to me at the start of middle school and changed my view of nonfiction books. Grade school nonfiction reading contained many pictures, and was easy to understand. However, everybody seemed to expect that being a middle schooler suddenly meant having a much better ability to comprehend books. Although teachers had read short chapters aloud in school, I never had a chance to finish the book until this summer because I was always reading other material.
What If? is a nonfiction book, but not the stereotypical nonfiction book that you’d dread taking notes on. The author, Randall Munroe, is a NASA roboticist-turned comic artist that primarily draws stick figure strips featuring a wide variety of themes. His tone is often a mixture of faked seriousness with a joking manner. Of course, that tone is appropriate when reading through his book, which features an assortment of seemingly sincere questions such as “What if every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color?” or “What would happen if the sun went out?” With each question, he attempts to answer the question sincerely but then add his own embellishment. For example, the laser questions begins with everybody holding a small handheld laser, but after attaining visibility of the moon, he continues to increase the power output until the moon is ultimately turned to plasma and blasted out of Earth’s orbit.
This picture appears often throughout Munroe’s response. The picture is reasonable at first but culminates with the moon being blasted away from Earth.
I would recommend What If? to anybody who wants to read nonfiction with a sense of humor. This book would also be suitable for free reading because it is nonchalant but interesting. If you don’t have a lot of time, you can just read one short answer section at a time. Each section is always full of scientific surprises, and his cartoons and sarcastic comments could help you enjoy scientific reading.
What If? is one of my favorite books as well. I think this is well written, and it nicely reflects the nature of the book and Randall Munroe's unique style. I definitely agree that usually i don't like non-fiction much, but this book really is different. It is interesting, funny, and overall a really good book. I do like the way you used the picture as an example, but one suggestion would be to maybe have a couple more quotes. Also, xkcd has a new book coming out on September 3, that you might be interested in called How To.
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely interested in How To! When I was finding a picture from the XKCD website, I came across a promotion for How To, so I'm looking forward to getting a copy. I also have not yet read Thing Explainer, another one of Randall Munroe's books.
DeleteI think this sounds like an interesting book. I also agree that non-fiction can get pretty boring and I like the idea of adding some sarcasm to make the book more interesting. I also liked how you gave some examples of the kind of questions that the author answers in the book.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you make the book seem appealing by contrasting it to a book "you'd dread taking notes on." I found it interesting how this book changed your view on non-fiction books, as you said you tend to gravitate towards fiction. The mix of humor with information sounds interesting, and I will consider checking this book out.
ReplyDeleteRandall Munroe seems like a talented writer who has found ways create non-fiction books that are just as interesting as fiction books. I've never liked non-fiction either because everything there is what I am used to experiencing. In fiction however, there is always a new world you can explore that is typically far more interesting than the boring life of the average human. So, when I read your blog post, I realized that non-fiction can indeed be interesting if the author is able to explore the more interesting aspects of reality. I am glad that you included examples of his style of writing. It helped me better understand his writing style as someone who had never heard of him before. From what I can tell, his style of writing is pushing the line between fiction and non-fiction as he is able to bring scenarios that would never happen in real life, even though they are still possible. If I am ever looking for a new book to read, I might decide to read this book as I would be interested in seeing Randall's unique writing style in more detail, even if the book itself is not as interesting as fiction books.
ReplyDeleteI also used to think that non-fiction was boring, until I read a couple of books on topics I was interested in. While I still prefer fiction books, I am now more willing to read non-fiction ones. What If? sounds very interesting and unlike typical non-fiction books. You did a great job explaining why you liked it, even though you usually wouldn't read books of this genre. The humor, along with the pictures, might lead me to read it in the future.
ReplyDeleteI too normally don’t enjoy nonfiction books (maybe partially because I associate them with schoolwork), but What If? sounds appealing to me because of its comical elements. I looked up some examples from What if?, and I can see how some of the questions are scientific and other questions are just plain ridiculous! For example, one question was, "How much Force power can Yoda output?" The next time I go to Barnes and Noble, I will look out for this book.
ReplyDeleteYou did a very good job in this review of describing the author's tone, which gives someone reading this review an idea of what his sense of humor is like. You also did a good job to use several examples of his "What If?" situations in order to illustrate that sense of humor.
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