Data Soliloquies [Hardcover]

The scientific concepts that are introduced throughout the book are perfectly explained by Richard Hamblyn as he takes the reader by the hand through a wonderfully genuine and concise account of environmental issues that the everyday man or woman will have no doubt been exposed to through the media in the past decade. The book is split up into four main chapters, of which the latter three are predominantly centred on scientific understanding and political conflict which has arose from climate change issues. After a somewhat understandingly self-indulgent foreword from Prof. Mark Maslin (Director of the UCL Environment Institute), (I say self indulgent as I would guess promoting the purpose of the institute is his job in this context) the book starts with an introducing chapter about the two authors (writer & artist) and the pre-tense under which this book came to light.

Whilst this is interesting I would personally say that the book didn't become immediately engaging for me until the second chapter; "Of Exactitude in Science" where Hamblyn begins his "story" on climate change and its associated data by introducing the keeling curve (1958). From here on in Hamblyn lathers the history behind climate change data into the attention of the reader in an interesting manner whilst simultaneously nestling concise and accurate accounts of opinions from other essays which highlight the then growing political interest into this data at the turn of the mid-twentieth century right up to modern day - of which readers may be more familiar. This sets the theme for the next two chapters to come as discussion is brought to a political bias in "Whistleblowers" - The third Chapter. The book finishes with Hamblyn talking about cloud formations and the implications these have on our environment in an equally interesting way. This makes for a great literary pedestal for a crescendo of images and notes produced by Martin John Callanan (The Artist) which wraps up the book nicely with the final chapter; "Text Trends".

It is clear that alot of care went into this book and the finished article makes for a terrific read.

My only slight gripe with the book is that it was too interesting for its length (112); as a result I will be looking into further books written by Hamblyn in the near future.

NB - I'll finish by saying that I'm a 19 year old second year undergrad studying Maths and Physics. I would say that the science content of this book will not be beyond the understanding of people without a scientific background.
Overall - A Great read, highly recommended and will be giving it to my Geography housemate who perhaps appreciates clouds more than me.

I bought this as a phd student working in the climate sciences and have to deal with the misery of incomplete error filled data daily, I thought this book would be appropriate for me! It had a few interesting passages about climate change spin but it jumps to different subjects randomly and is very short, I found this to be a blessing after a while! The pictures are pretty but the main one on the cover, a cloud embossed globe from a single moment, what purpose does this serve? As a piece of science it is not very easy to decipher becuase it is one colour and doesn't reveal much scientifically, as a piece of art it is bland, and very small! The graphs at the end reporting the frequency of occurrence with which two words are googled over 5 years are misleading, as you are meant to look at the relationship between public interest in the two things, but the y axis is arbitrary and I think often there is no relationship, but the creation of the graphs imply there is. I bought this book as I really liked Hamblyn's invention of clouds which was very thorough and informative, this is quite sparse in comparison and one wonders what the pair did for the duration of their residency, this book cannot be the sole product of an entire summer.