Great fun to read and see how to apply mathematical thinking towards reducing one's biases.

Незважаючи на жовтувату назву, хороша математична книжка

Even though this book deals with a subject that intimidates a lot of people, maths, it is by no means overly complex. It is written in a very approachable manner and it is more about the theory of how to think, of how to adopt a more precise mode of thinking, than it is about algebra or any formulas. I would say perhaps the title of the book is not exactly accurate, since the author explains time and time again that even while employing a more mathematical thinking, maths isn't always right. But it helps one to be methodical and approach the problem logically.
It is quite an accessible book, but I would say that you can't be completely foreign to certain mathematical concepts to understand it. Audiobook might also not help you follow certain chapters very well, so consider another kind of copy.
Furthermore, I would say the book drags quite a bit and, unfortunately, can be quite boring and seem pointless at times. There are very interesting chapters, but others that, perhaps because of the audio version as well, I wanted to speed up. While he tries to link the topic to real world problems/applications, I feel that some parts were quite repetitive.

Nevertheless, if you're interested in a thorough overview on mathematical thinking, this might be for you! However, it is not a practical guide and will not exactly do what it states it can. You'll still be wrong plenty of times, sorry.

This book was such a disappointment. I give 3 stars, because it did include some good information, but two stars would be a better rating based on my level of enjoyment or interest. The title is a misnomer, and, with some exceptions, the examples given regarding the application of mathematical thinking to every day life are often unsatisfying. For instance, way too much time is spent on an examination of lottery systems in this book.

This came highly recommended and I just found it to be an overhyped discussion of probability that didn’t know its audience.

7.5/10
Duration: 13 days (took a massive gap between reading because I got super busy!)

**I will preface by saying that I am not mathematically gifted, so I frequently would pause & reread while reading to help myself fully understand the concepts.**

What I liked:
- Ellenberg uses really relatable scenarios to translate (complex) mathematical concepts
- For the most part, it's not a dull book. Ellenberg's writing style is actually really funny & quirky
- A lot of mini history lessons in there which I enjoyed reading (I like learning about history but if you're not into it as much, this might be a con for you)
- The cute charts & graphics made concepts easier to understand (I'm more of a visual learner)

What I disliked:
- I think the book jumped around a lot which would get confusing. Ellenberg would start off strong, talking about a concept, then he would sort of get lost in his examples (some of them were really longwinded). At times he would be talking about two examples at the same time before he concluded what his overall point was. As someone who is not well versed in Math, it kind of made some ideas hard to follow.
- I chalk most of my understanding of the book to the fact that I took math courses (like calculus & vectors) all throughout high school. I remembered all the basic stuff which made the book easier to follow. Not sure how others might feel when reading it though.



Final thoughts:
- I think if you really enjoy Math as a subject, then you'll like this book. If don't enjoy Math, then I wouldn't recommend reading it. And if you're like me, where you find Math interesting but it requires more mental effort to understand, you might be in the middle, depending on how much you remember from previous Math courses.

This is a well done book, written by a mathematician. It gives a lot of great stories about how to improve our thinking about the world around us. My problem with the book is that most of the concepts taught and examples that are used are statistics. Ellenberg talks about p-values, regression, sampling, the Law of Large Numbers, probabilities with coin flipping and more. He even talks about Bayesian versus Frequentist ideas and the controversy between Neyman and Fisher, two famous statisticians. I can appreciate that statistics is based on mathematical concepts but if all your examples of mathematical concepts are statistics, Ellenberg is really making the case for why everybody should take a statistics class, not a mathematics class. Of course, the statistics class needs to be taught in a way to emphasize concepts and principles rather than calculation methods - as I write about here - https://cocreativelythinking.com/redesigning-the-traditional-statistics-class/.

This has taken me quite a while to read and perhaps that timeline has adversely impacted my opinion of the book. It seems to take an awful lot of pages to say what could have been said in a couple of magazine articles.

Lucid, practical, and funny.

I don’t think the author necessarily presented anything brand new to the world. But what he did present, was explained in such an accessible way that I found a lot of his points on concepts I was vaguely familiar with finally “clicking.” As such, this book did a great job of stimulating a lot of half cocked thoughts. However I am now in the position of having about 10 different notes on my phone of half cocked thoughts of mathematical concepts and their applications to current problems I am working on. So if I have a complaint, it’s that this book was too shallow. I don’t want to have to take a follow up course on regression or non-linearity to understand its applications and the best ways to use those concepts. However, the book itself is a compelling enough case for practical mathematics that I might seriously consider it.

Awful title. Solid book. A fun jaunt through math as a general field.