A science book like no other

By Brian Clegg

 I’ve had a bit of a flurry of publication, mostly due to dates shifting thanks to Covid, resulting in three books being published in September. Two of these were Ten Days in Physics that Shook the World and Ten Patterns that Explain the Universe (in an attempt to corner the market in books with ‘ten’ in the title), but the most unusual one by far was How it All Works, written with Adam Dant.

In fact, ‘written with Adam Dant’ is a huge understatement – this is very much Adam’s book. He is a remarkable artist who produces wonderfully detailed crowd scene drawings. All I did was suggest some scientific principles and phenomena to go in the illustrations, and added a few words on each. The result is a sort of cross between Where’s Wally and a popular science book. You really don’t have to care much about the science to enjoy the remarkable illustrations. 

Rather than do what appears to be blowing my own trumpet (though my enthusiasm is all for the drawings), take a look at this review by Jill Bennett – although it’s a children’s book review, as she says ‘The potential audience for this unusual book is wide – from KS2 through to adult and it’s most definitely one to add to a family collection as well as those of primary and secondary schools.’

How it All Works is available from Bookshop, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Here’s just one of the spreads – though of course there is far more detail in the book:

Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.