This was a humours and easy to understand approach to understanding some more complicated topics. Would recommend for those with a basic background and those hoping to expand their knowledge of science

A whistle stop tour through the word of Science, Benraman's book packs a lot of science into one volume. The learning is great and the knowledge shown fantastic but the tone... Written in a voice I can only describe as more 'Bill and Ted' than Hawking, this is so irritating (dude). I really liked the accessible approach to complex science (rad) but that is where is stops (bummer)!

I despised science lessons at school, although that was more about the teacher, the students and the school than the actual subject I feel. Since then, my love of science has grown exponentially, and I have read and continue to read various books about the sciences. You could say that I have a science-heavy reading diet!

This book explains in layman's terms various scientific concepts, the fundamentals, if you will, that we appear to have neglected and in their place comes our thirst for technological knowledge although the two have been known to overlap. Sometimes these type of books can be extremely dry and tedious despite holding sound information, but here Benamran has cleverly incorporated some wit and humour into the book to lighten the mood. I thoroughly recommend this as I learned a lot from it, and ultimately that's why I read non-fiction in the first place. A fantastic place for a novice scientist to start to gather some knowledge, this is a well written and engaging read.

Many thanks to Ebury for an ARC. I was not required to write a review, and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

From the very beginning it is obvious that Benamran takes a very humourous approach to science education. While I was reading this book my other half had to get used to me giggling and reading bits out for his amusement - which is great as I'm a firm believer that if a thing is worth understanding it is worth understanding via the medium of humour. I think I got to grips with magnetism, atoms and even relativity but still failed to get to grips with mechanics. Everything else I could just about visualise in some way (although I did get a little confuddled with the explanation of time dilation involving virtually every American president I've ever heard of...) but I've definitely got a blind spot where mechanics are concerned. Lets just hope I never have to explain it in a life-or-death situation...There are some running gags in the book which I laughed at the first couple of times, then got a bit bored of, and then ended up looking for in a fond way - this sounds like a quality I admire in a teacher: the moment you look forward to their jokes. (Or ge-okes as my old geography teacher Mr Bogdin used to say...)

This is a great book for anyone wanting to understand more about some of the big concepts in science but who doesn't have a very science-heavy educational background. For those who do have a good solid science education this would be a good source of ways to explain things involving far more analogies than formulae - more pirate's eye patches and goats in trees than hard sums. Science teachers of the future, I'm looking at you!