Numbers Don't Lie

71 Things You Need to Know About the World

By: Vaclav Smil

Narrated by: Stephen Perring

Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Is flying dangerous? How much do the world's cows weigh? And what makes people happy?

From earth's nations and inhabitants, through the fuels and foods that energise them, to the transportation and inventions of our modern world - and how all of this affects the planet itself - in Numbers Don't Lie, Professor Vaclav Smil takes us on a fact-finding adventure, using surprising statistics and illuminating graphs to challenge lazy thinking.

Packed with 'well-I-never-knew-that' information and with fascinating and unusual examples throughout, we find out how many people it took to build the Great Pyramid, that vaccination yields the best return on investment and why electric cars aren't as great as we think (yet). There's a wonderful mix of science, history and wit, all in bite-sized chapters on a broad range of topics.

Urgent and essential, Numbers Don't Lie inspires listeners to interrogate what they take to be true in these significant times. Smil is on a mission to make facts matter, because after all, numbers may not lie, but which truth do they convey?

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2020 Vaclav Smil (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil." (Bill Gates)

A collection of fun facts superficially researched

Surprised of the recommendation by Bill Gates about this book. Is a collection of interesting facts that seems to me like a book to read to make conversation in dinner parties. Nothing really special about it, returning it.

Such an intense book is sadly not suited for audio listening!

This book is brilliant, do yourself a favour, go out and purchase a print or kindle edition as of yesterday and read it, annotate it and refer back it. It is a distillation of Dr Smil’s books and expertise. However as an audible product, the concept density per spoken line is very high and that you keep hitting rewind on audible, makes it frustrating. This book is not for casual reading, let alone listening on audible. Dr Smil is my absolute favourite thought leader. I love this book and ended up rereading, the kindle version this time.

Bite size chapters with fascinating information

Smil links supposedly unrelated statistical information into an interesting narative. Each chapter is short, with just enough information on a specific subject to trigger your toughts and fill your understanding.

Great book, but recorded too quietly

Great book, but recorded too quietly, so it is hard to hear it when running outdooor near the road.

Great book

Great book, puts sometimes empty numbers that we are bombarded by into real life perspective.

Interesting read, but poor audio quality

The book and the narrator were decent, but the audio quality was not very good. I had set the volume to 100% to hear it properly.

Must read for Greta Thunberg

This book, as we are used to Vaclav Smil, points out the reality of the world and the environmental protections and what is possible and what plausible. Absolutely eye opening and refreshingly objective. Yes, numbers do not lie and the reader is well advised to understand orders of magnitudes and ISO units.

Volume low

The volume and voiice was to low and deep, hard to hear.. Ok ok ok

Awesome insight

Beautiful analysis of the facts that currently exist around us... As we are so easily duped into thinking we "know" everything and that everything is just magically going in the right direction... Vaclav finds a modern way to open your eyes to many misunderstandings that we currently have about our current world, especially the fact that we, as humans, don't entirely know what we're doing, but through constant efforts at obtaining deeper understanding, we do get somewhere eventually, and through this constant process we continually progress.

Important insight from a human that has vast amounts of knowledge.

Easy listen, but all topics are only covered superficially.

Easy listen, but all topics are only covered superficially, which I guess is to be expected. However it leaves room for nuance, which is lost as consequence.