John Allen Paulos is the maths teacher I found twenty-five years too late

Innumeracy would improve the quality of thinking of virtually anyone

Paulos provides much in this book that is thought-provoking and informative. Markets can sucker even a maths professor. At least he can explain why

Paulos mixes high mathematics with the kind of stories that make you laugh

Taught me more about the handling of numbers in real life than a thousand hours of maths teaching

This elegant little survival manual is brief, witty and full of practical applications

Dartnell makes the technology and science of everyday life in our civilization fascinating and understandable. This book may or may not save your life but it'll certainly make it more interesting.

This the book we all wish we'd been given at school: The Knowledge that makes everything else make sense

A marvelously astounding work: In one graceful swoop, Lewis Dartnell takes our multi-layered, interconnected modern world, shows how fragile its scaffolding is, and then lays out a how-to guide for starting over from scratch. Imagine Zombieland told by Neil deGrasse Tyson and you'll get some sense of what a delight The Knowledge is to read

A remarkable and panoramic view of how civilization actually works

This book is useful if civilization collapses, and entertaining if it doesn't. After the cometary impact it may save your life, and if it doesn't at least you'll know why you perished

Even if you don't believe the end is nigh, it's a completely fascinating manual of practical knowledge most of us woefully lack. I might keep the proof to hand, just in case

It’s the end of the world, and you feel fine. It’s what comes next that should worry you… The Knowledge will ensure you and your fellow survivors have the know-how to reboot civilization from scratch

An amazing book with all the information you need to rebuild society after a major catastrophe. It's not a daft survival manual but a highly intelligent description of all that makes our lives normal. Every household should have a copy

A breezy how-to guide to the rebuilding of civilisation... Admirable

A whistle-stop tour of the history of science and technology… Full of those "oh!" moments when you think, "well, I never thought of that before"… Fascinating

Replete with tips and illustrations and fascinating factoids

This book is an extraordinary achievement... It is a great read even if civilisation does not collapse. If it does, it will be the sacred text of the new world – Dartnell that world's first great prophet

Armed with Lewis Dartnell's new book, I should be able to stride confidently into a post-apocalyptic future... Dartnell's guide to surviving the apocalypse is as breezy and engaging as it is informative

Engaging, thought-provoking and (mostly) accessible… Readers will certainly come away better informed, more knowledgeable about, and hopefully more interested in the fundamental science and technology necessary to rebuild a civilised society

A fascinating and fun read

The Knowledge impresses as a condensed history of scientific progress, and will pique curiosity among readers who regret daydreaming throughout school chemistry lessons. Like this reviewer, some will be troubled by their ignorance of the basics, and how useless that could render them if the lights do go out

A hymn to human ingenuity… Essential reading

If the world ends with a bang or a whimper make sure you have a copy of this book to hand, or you won’t have a clue how to survive or kick-start the new civilisation

An engaging and wide-ranging discussion of the scientific discoveries and technological innovations that underpin our lives… Littered with fascinating facts and an infectious enthusiasm for science and technology shines through in the accessible and lively writing… An absorbing thought experiment which celebrates the insight and ingenuity which has made this habitable planet into a civilized world

There is no better guide to the basic science and engineering that underlies our everyday life than this clear and fascinating book

A great idea for a book… Excellent and intriguing

The conceit that this is a handbook for rebooting modern civilization is really just a cute way of framing what turns out to be a terrifically engrossing history of science and technology

There is great depth and insight in The Knowledge, which is brilliantly imaginative and thorough in its study of science and technology

This book should be on everyone’s bookshelf, just in case the worst happens… The one guide you need to rebuild civilisation

an eye-opening dose of fantastical reality

This is mega-history of the best sort: sweeping but not simplistic, contemporary but not gimmicky, provocative but not contrarian. Almost everyone will want to argue with one part of this book or another, but working out which part and why will do us all good.

For its sheer originality and intellectual stimulation, I was captivated by Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens

That fellow connected an awful lot of dots in that work. I thought the book would be a dense read, a slog, with a struggle for my brain on every page. I had a highlighter ready to mark the more pavement-thick paragraphs I’d have to go back and re-ponder. Instead, I flew through it like it was a nonfiction The Thorn Birds. Does that mean I’m getting smarter?

Ambitious and invigorating

Harari’s book is important reading for serious-minded, self-reflective sapiens

Brilliantly done and endlessly fascinating

Vast and intricate... Engaging and informative

A thrilling account of humankind’s extraordinary history

The book is maddeningly opinionated and insanely ambitious. It is also compulsively readable and impossibly learned. It is one of the best accounts by a Homo sapiens of the unlikely story of our violent, accomplished species

An enthusiastic and confident narrative that is relentlessly interesting from the first word to the last

The most exciting book I’ve read this year

One of the most talked about non-fiction bestsellers of the year... Harari is one of the very few thinkers around who’s really looking at what’s happening now. Sapiens is his attempt to tell the story of the past to understand the present: the great technological advances that we are all living through now

Eloquent and provocative

A headclutchingly provocative account of our species from the Stone Age to the present... Stunningly ambitious and compellingly written. They call it macro-history. They’re right.

Fascinating

Unforgettably vivid language. I urge everyone to read it

Contains a remarkable piece of information on almost every page and reminds us that we should be grateful to be human.

Thought-provoking

I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species.

Read with an open mind and you might look at life in a whole new way.

A fantastic book about how homo sapiens came to conquer the world

A dark and thrilling epic.

I have continued to be driven bonkers by my current obsession: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, an extraordinary tome that charts the plight of the planet’s most destructive species since the dawn of time: us. Every paragraph gives you pause for thought, as it catalogues how nuts human beings really are… It may be the best book I’ve ever read; it’s certainly fascinating.

This doesn’t make you feel clever; it makes you feel included. It’s written so brilliantly… He’s written about the human family as a family.

It's one of the best books I’ve read recently and gives an excellent overview of how our species has developed and helps us understand why and who we are today.

A sweeping account of the history of our species, written in vivid prose.

It rattles along, firing glitter-coated bullets of wisdom as it goes. If Carlsberg made professors, they’d have fashioned them thus. You’ll never have quite as much fun while learning so much.

Reading this wonderful book feels like looking at life down the bigger end of the telescope. Its scope – which incorporates the history of our species and the question of what the future may have in store – is so magisterial, one has an increasingly godlike feeling while reading it.

An absolute trove that everyone who wants to understand everything from human evolution to diet, religions and limited liability companies should read.

Opening up a controversial topic with spirit and thoroughness, Sapiens will challenge your preconceptions, provoke discussion and, most importantly, push you to think for yourself… Bold and provocative.

A brilliant, interdisciplinary account of the past and future of our species… Some of Harari’s most interesting points are the ways in which the fundamental, unchanging traits that make us human (emotions, desires) relate to the modern world. Essential reading for any liberal arts degree.

In the unlikely event you haven’t already read it and…fancy learning some cool new stuff in a fun way, I wholeheartedly recommend it to you.

It’s so intense that you have to read a bit then have a rest. It has brilliant passages, such as where he argues humans became enslaved by agriculture. Vivid and invigorating.

Every now and then a book comes along that tilts your perspective on the world. This internationally best-selling phenomenon is one of them.

Insightful, provocative and certainly gives you a sense of perspective

Shortly before the pandemic, I read Sapiens... It's not an exaggeration to say I've thought of it every day since

It succeeds through its eclectic scope, its readability, and its author’s willingness to offer ethical judgements

Although grief is the engine of the story, its most exceptional aspect is the beauty and force of its descriptions of birds and landscape, and its real star is the goshawk.

The winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize is one of the most captivating books I've read.

It is in no way a misery memoir. It is uplifting, poetic, exhilarating.

What makes the book outstanding is the beauty of her prose. It rightly won the prize.

Combining nature writing of the highest order…with a deeply affecting meditation on bereavement, this looks set to become a classic.

One of the most all-consumingly wonderful books I’ve read in ages.

Emphatically my book of the year.

I’ve read excerpts from this book and it sounds wild and strange and haunting.

It’s worthy winner most in that it shows how diverse non-fiction can be in itself.

It’s a treat – a truly original, if slightly mad, book.

I have never read anything that evokes the strange and broken landscape of bereavement more accurately.

Ultimately uplifting about the power of life, this has to be one of the best books of the year.

It is a timeless classic that leaves you wondering how you did without it before.

Wonderful.

The book is unforgettable.

Her book is so good that, at times, it hurt me to read it. It draws blood, in ways that seem curative.

To categorize this work as merely memoir, nature writing or spiritual writing would understate [Macdonald’s] achievement

Captivating and beautifully written, it’s a meditation on the bond between beasts and humans and the pain and beauty of being alive

To come across writing this good…is like spotting a swooping bird of prey on a woodland walk; it’s unexpected and thrilling, and the experience stays with you

It’s completely original

Macdonald writes poignantly but avoids sentimentality on taking her reader on this journey of discovery and ultimately of liberation

Both sad and beautiful

Macdonald’s nature writing is truly breathtaking… H is for Hawk is a work that beautifully explores the natural in the midst of the very personal

probably one of the most unusual non-fictions books I’ve read, but… one of the most heartfelt and intriguing ones

poetic and intriguing

H is for Hawk, her memoir of loss, writing, recovery and nature, drawing ingeniously on the life and work of T.H. White, covered this territory with ferocious honesty and eloquence

Combines lyrical nature writing with moving introspection.

Fiercely, grippingly brilliant.

Exceptionally well researched and written… It’s a wonderful book, it made me cry.

Macdonald's is a book about grief, the churlish indifference of the natural world to human emotions and the solitude of failure, but it is also about a "return from this strange hedgerow ontology to more ordinary humanity". It is heartbreaking and affirming at the same time.

A lyrical, moving probe into both the process of mourning and our relationship with the natural world.

One of the decade’s most arresting nature books