Robin Ince surprises and delights with all kinds of snippets of information and ideas that underly our world.
All kinds of things you never knew you needed to know but after reading this book you are awfully glad you do.

Thanks very much to the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this title. Many thanks, Dave

For some reason I found this very difficult to read in an electronic format, and only finished it when I changed to a paper copy.

It was a widespread look at many strands of science, and the author showed a willingness to approach any question with an open mind.

I'll start by saying I like Robin Ince, he's a great co-host on Infinite Monkey Cage, and his intelligence and humour are normally engaging. Unfortunately, his book on being interested, just wasn't, well, interesting.

The book is about science and curiosity, but it's incredibly rambling. Ideas aren't pursued before he spins off. He just gets beneath the surface on a topic, then wham, he's off quoting somebody and heading in a different direction. Robin mentions the "tangential nature of my jabbering" when on-stage, and I imagine it works well with a live audience. On paper , it feels unfleshed out.

The clincher for me was the comment, "I would hope that those private companies that are now financing space missions have not build up their fortunes needed to become extraterrestrial by skimping on tax or employee rights and benefits", that's exactly what they've done - it's well documented.

It feels like a lock-down project that was rushed to completion as the world started opening up. Some parts are worth reading, so 3 stars.

Pitched by Professor Brian Cox and summarised as a book about science written by a non-scientist, I thought this might be a humour-filled look at just how important it is to be interested in science even if you're not scientifically minded. Instead, it's a book about everything Robin Ince learned through becoming friends and colleagues of scientists and him trying to explain it in laymen's terms to the reader.
Not really what I expected so I didn't particularly enjoy it. Maybe I should've got a better understanding of what the book was before I went into it as I don't think it was for me.
---
Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and Robin Ince for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A great book for anyone with even the slightest curiosity about the world. Written in Robin Ince’s typically engaging style, making it very readable, and fascinating throughout.

A joyous journey down the rabbit hole of science with Robin

I’m a big fan of Robin Ince, his eclectic way of mixing science with humour to surreal effect is a winning formula for me. Reading this book is just like being at one of his stand-up shows.

Written during lock-down Robin used his contacts with an impressive list of scientists, astronauts and other seriously clever people to follow a train of thought that is something to behold. Like his stand-up and radio shows it’s a bit like going down a rabbit hole of thought and scientific discovery. You wouldn’t be surprised to see the white rabbit pop up at any moment. There’s some pretty deep thinking in here too and I always find something new to explore or consider in Robin’s work.

His mind is joyous, eternally curious and making connections that can be deep and humorous at the same time. If you like to laugh and be able to learn something new about science at the same time, or at least see it in a different light, then read Robin’s book.

I was given this book from the author via netgalley only for the pleasure of reading and leaving an honest review should I choose to.

This was a book to ‘dip into’ rather than read in a few sittings. Consequently I didn’t completely finish reading in the available time.. it’s not an in-depth treatise on any particular aspect of physics, mare a meander through things Robin Ince has learned in his dealings with various scientists. But it encompasses more than physics; he reflects on -among other things- religion, belief, history. He describes his growing fascination with science, and his enthusiasm is clear on every page. As a science teacher, I would have preferred a bit more structure and logical order, but it was an interesting and entertaining read.

A wonderful and fascinating book, exploring a range of topics of interest to everyone - or they should be. Some of it baffling but captivating and some of it just mind blowing. I learnt so much.

Inevitably, Brian Cox introduces his sparring partner's book: "There are two categories of idiot: the curious idiot – a category that includes all scientists – and the idiot – a category that includes all who are certain. Robin is a category one idiot, and that's why he's an engaging and wise guide". This is exactly the sort of line you can imagine coming across much better spoken, with a faint edge of awareness of its own paradox, than in writing. And at first I got some of the same sense from Ince's own writing here. Which is only to be expected; sure, he's written a couple of books before, but that's dwarfed by the amount of time he's spent honing his talents as a performer, so no wonder if he can't modulate his effects quite so perfectly on the page, especially when this particular book seems to have been less a thing he specifically wanted to do as a book, than a way to stop himself from going entirely potty in lockdown after live performance ceased to exist. Even aside from that, though, the book's early sections can sometimes feel a little limp, a bit too 'why can't we all just get along'. Yes, it's valuable to point out that the memes and shirts which suggest science is wholly objective are bullshit (Ince gives the solid example of Fred Hoyle, an astronomical pioneer in some respects but one doggedly unwilling to accept the big bang theory*), or that just telling people they're idiots is unlikely to shift beliefs - but when does politeness lapse into appeasement? I can veer fairly centrist dad myself at times, but I absolutely understand why people bridle at this. Though hell, you can see why someone who's previously put on the likes of Richard Dawkins, and then watched as, like pretty much everything else, atheism has become more annoying over the past decade, might feel the need to reformulate his position. Especially when you contrast Dawkins' gift for putting backs up with the example of Carl Sagan, one of Ince's scientific saints, whose humility and charm even managed to convert a 'creation scientist' he initially met while they were testifying against each other in one of those ludicrous US trials.

In a sense, that searching for connection and common ground is one of the main threads running through the book. Often, I loved it, as when Ince tweaks the nose of human exceptionalism by not only detailing but relishing our demonstrably close kinship not just to apes, or even other higher life, but with organisms right down to the level of yeast. Elsewhere, though, it can occasionally lapse into a false and cloying universalism. I adore the idea of an archaeologist proposing in front of a picture of a pharaoh and his bride, because these were people who had pledged to be together for eternity, and she wanted that same commitment. And maybe Egyptian love poetry really is impressively sexy, though we're told rather than shown as much. But then we get the point this is used to illustrate: "Just as the laws of the universe lead to the principle of uniformitarianism, so the principles of human lust and jealousy show that being human throughout time has not been so very different, simply because we didn't have smartphones and sandwich toasters."
Really? Even today, within a given country, let alone around the world, lust and jealousy, never mind the structures around them, can vary an awful lot. Would an Egyptian marriage be so very recognisable to us, or ours to them, when our own relationships are strange enough to each other to keep Channels 4 and 5 in large chunks of regular programming?
Still, I forgive a lot for the idea that of all the behaviours we've been told are uniquely human over the years, the relevant interviewee (and the book has many, including a few fairly big names) suggests that the only one really particular to us is the ability to contemplate multiple meanings of a single thing. Though even aside from my own example, which I would have liked to ask her about (not using tools directly, but using tools to make better tools), this does suggest depressing corollaries regarding the many people incapable of doing that, the regrettably numerous types who always take depiction for endorsement and assume all creators support their protagonists' actions.

When the book is at its best, though, there are some wonderful sections where Ince is using his academic contacts as supporting evidence rather than skeleton, and where his undoubted way both with concepts and words leads to some very smart and moving sections. Most impressively, the book is often at its most winning precisely when it's on the scariest ground. I don't recall ever before entirely putting together the pieces that if you're overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe today, just think - tomorrow it's going to be even bigger! Above all, towards the end there are absolutely gorgeous chapters on the end – both of ourselves, and of everything – which manage to address the biggest, most unappetising concepts there are, and yet still offer not just wisdom, but laughs: "If you think that Lost had a disappointing series finale, wait until you hear about the cosmos." So how does someone who can't abide being bored deal with the notion that "One day all of this will end and, before it ends, for billions, perhaps trillions of years, it may be very, very dull. You would end up praying for it to end with something as spectacular as a whimper"? By delighting in the fact that it's not that boring yet, of course. And as per the title, that sense of delight, and delighting in the delight of others, seems to be a big part of what keeps Ince going, and what makes him such an engaging guide. In particular, I enjoy his emphasis – and his disagreement even with the likes of Brian Eno – on the notion that it's possible to find entirely the same sort of joy and imagination and sense of wonder at what humans can do in science as it is in art. Even if that can't help but feel like its own futile gesture in the face of entropy for those of us living in a country where an awful yet apparently unshakable regime is determined to render the former as Gradgrindian as possible while altogether defunding the latter.

*No, not as in the TV show. Refusing to accept that vile thing is entirely right and proper.

(Netgalley ARC)

Delightful book. Had the good fortune to see Robin speak on his book tour and his enthusiasm is infectious and it comes through on the page.

Energetic and funny read about many things I don’t understand but enjoyable nonetheless.

Excellent Christmas gift for the curious.

Few can explain science with more clarity, coherence, passion ad genuine humour than Radio 4 regular, Robin Ince. Highly recommended.

The inimitable Robin Ince, comedian, radio host and all round good guy, has produced a superbly affecting account of science through the lens of some of the most engaging thinkers around.

Everyone who might think that science is too hard, or too far removed from their experience, or who was just turned off the subject at school should read this. It presents some of the most difficult science subjects in an engaging, understandable and, most of all, human format.

Definitely worth buying.

This was a fascinating book and I learned something new on every page. Engagingly written, funny and always insightful. A great stocking-filler.

Well written, very entertaining, educational. Highly recommend to anyone, it's an accessible but very interesting read. Really enjoyed it.

Robin Ince’s The Importance of Being Interested is a set of excited musings about science by an intelligent, curious and highly articulate non-scientist. Ince, as the title suggests, is interested n science and explains why we should join him in that state. Science doesn’t have all the right answers (but it probably has the best ones available for now) and, as Professor Brian Cox writes in the introduction, “It’s important to explore that terrain with humility and an open mind. It’s important to be interested.” This would be an excellent book to buy for a teenager, whether they love science or they’re unsure about it.

“Power often rests on certainties”, writes Ince. His message is that the more we question those certainties, the more we erode that power and prevent us all following a leader, lemming-like, over a cliff. However, if that certainty is supported by proof, we should probably accept it. Ince talks to experts in various disciplines and, whilst he questions and challenges them, he accepts that someone who has 40 years’ experience of virology and immunology is likely to know more about Covid than a Youtube influencer with no medical experience whatsoever.

There are so many one-liners scattered through this book. I confess that I’m going to hoard them and scatter them in my work emails. “A little knowledge s only a dangerous thing f you think it’s enough knowledge.”; “… the more we explore and the more we learn, the better our questions become.” And Voltaire’s “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” Good science is never certain…

… And that’s the power of Ince’s book. He shows us how exciting it is for a scientist (and for us) to be unsure and to debate whether the answer might be x or it might be y. This is not about the science we did at school, where if you burn hydrogen, you WILL get water. This is the science that argues about the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang – Planck time. The universe was so small, quantum mechanics and gravity fight about what happens. It’s the science that asks, as Einstein did just before he died, about the distinction between the past, present and future; and it’s about theories that don’t exist yet. It’s worth reiterating: Ince is not a scientist. He doesn’t have lots of equation and big words. As the book’s title tells you, it’s important to be interested and to engage with the science. If you do, there is beauty out there, in cosmology, in biology, in physics – and there are scientists eager to show it to you. When a physicist (Jon Butterworth) can only answer a question about time by quoting the seventh century Venerable Bede’s simile of a man’s life being like the experience of a sparrow in winter: flying into a fire-warmed hall through one window and flying out through another window a second later back into winter, you know you can participate in the discussion.

#TheImportanceofBeingInterested #NetGalley

I think The Importance Of Being Interested is excellent. It is witty, insightful and extremely interesting.

Robin Ince, as most readers will know, is a comedian who began with little knowledge of science but developed an interest and has now presented over 100 episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage with Prof. Brian Cox on Radio 4. In The Importance Of Being Interested, he reflects on his and others’ responses to discoveries in science, using the very considerable knowledge he has gained combined with the humility of a non-expert, to try to understand what some of these ideas mean to people. These people include a wide range of scientists, astronauts and the like who have deep knowledge of the subjects, and also ordinary non-scientists. It’s a fascinating, thoughtful and entertaining read.

Ince addresses subjects like the relationship between science and religion, what space travel means for humanity, evolution and why some people refuse so violently to accept it and so on. He is plainly knowledgeable but wisely leaves most scientific exposition to experts whom he has talked to or read, while concentrating on the human aspects of what the science means. I found it fascinating and very well balanced; for example, as an atheist himself he has immense respect for a lot of rational religious people, strives to understand how it it possible to believe in both scientific rationalism and a God and concludes (correctly in my view) that it certainly is, even if it isn’t a set of beliefs he shares. Ince he has no truck with anti-scientific ideas which clearly go against the evidence, but is genuinely interested in finding out why some people hold them and seem to be immune to reason. He also recognises the importance of trying to re-establish rationality in areas where irrationality and conspiracy theory abound, and the importance of making genuine human contact and explaining scientific ideas with respect and humility. No one has ever been insulted into changing their mind.

One other aspect which I liked very much is that Ince stresses how much scientific knowledge has enhanced his – and humanity’s – awe, respect and wonder at the universe and the natural world. I have always thought that it was a naive and insulting view of the universe to insist that analysing and investigating a poem, for example, leads us to a greater appreciation of its beauty, but doing the same for the natural world somehow destroys all beauty and wonder in it. My own study of science has had quite the opposite effect and it is very pleasing to see this view shared and advocated so well.

In short, this is a fascinating, humane and very enjoyable read. I can recommend it very warmly.

(My thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)

A wonderfully accessible, funny and insightful intro into the 'science' of this very timely subject. - not least, as the title itself says, because there is not only so much importance in being interested, but actual, serious value of all sorts in actively being and remaining so.

A brilliant, intelligent read that is educational but also entertaining. I liken it to the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Well worth a read and will likely convert many a "science phobe"

Robin has such a way with words that made this an utter joy to read. I saw so much of my own early experiences in his (and no doubt, what many others will have found too) with the loss of a spark in secondary school science classes. Where all of a sudden all the bright colours of science are turned drab and grey and you can’t wait for the bell to ring to be out of that physics classroom!!

But it’s so important to keep a curiosity when it comes to science. It is everywhere whether we like it or not. In our lives, in what we do, in what we are. It can be an amazing thing when that spark for science is relighted and something I’m very grateful to the Infinite Monkey Cage podcasts for, which Robin Ince also hosts (would recommend!).

I found my love for science through curiosity and I’m now a scientist so, guess anyone can overcome their preconceived high school dislike of science.

Many people think science is for ‘others’. For people with an Einstein level IQ and those who were born with a quantum physics book in their hand. But science is everyone’s. Robin really goes a long way to show that and this book is beyond perfect to rekindle a curiosity in science. It can enrich your life and how you think, and can be nothing but a benefit to those who retain their curiosity about the world and the universe through science.

It really is greatly written and I love Robin’s style of writing. So easy going, entertaining, a pleasure to read and easy to sink into. Non fiction can be something that people struggle to read but not so with this one.

Whether it’s about conspiracy theories and questioning our information, on the topics of science and religion, the vastness of the universe, aliens or about our place in the universe, there’s definitely something in here for everyone to get your brain firing and your curiosity peaked. The chapter about life and death was so beautifully written and so well done.

The book also includes talks to many eminent researchers in their field, astronauts who have had a very unique perspective of earth and those who have had their own stories to tell when it comes to scientific curiosity. With that and Robin’s own thoughts and experiences, it made for very informative and great reading. A very worthwhile read! I loved it.