A review by randomdawdler
The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity by Robin Ince

4.0

I enjoyed reading this book - its certainly very thought provoking and likely to make you imagine many wondrous, space related/cosmology related things. Its a thoughtful read and its mostly a fairly easy read, at least I found it pretty accessible to start with but I admit I was in a bit of a rush to finish it and towards the end, it felt a bit more of a slog to read. Some subjects of course are more interesting than others I guess and certainly at the end, thinking too much about the ultimate death of the universe may feel a bit cold and depressing, so you may well want to be in the right frame of mind to read some of this but for the most part, this is a good read, with contributions from numerous scientists and some celebrities. I liked the quotes and the images provided alongside the text.

I enjoy reading Robin's books - his previous book called 'I'm A Joke and So Are You?' was one I really liked, when I read it a few years ago. I've seen some of his live stream shows via his Cosmic Shambles organisation online and I see myself in his anxiousness. Reading the book, his anxiety becomes quite clear but for me its good in that I can relate and understand his perspective on things. One mild down point would be that sometimes I felt a little confused about when it was him as the main author talking to the reader and when it was the previous interviewee. Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention but I can't deny I got something out of this book - for me, overall, it was a re-assuring read and I like that there are pages of notes at the back, including some URLs and in the main text itself are references to authors and books that may interest the reader, if their curious about what's being discussed.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone with a curious mind, especially anyone with a if basic interest in philosophy and science. Thank you for reading my review, I hope you found it useful.