Curious
The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends On It

I'm starting to get a little tired of the "journalist writes about some vague topic" genre of popular non-fiction. It's a tried and true formula; anecdote, brief statement of some academic's viewpoint, historical reference, review of some study, story about Benjamin Franklin/Mark Twain/Isaac Newton/......more

In this book, author Ian Leslie has a number of interesting points to make: * Curiosity has always constituted an evolutionary advantage. In a complex world that’s even more true as it’s impossible to know what might be useful in the future. Hence it’s important to spread our cognitive bets, i.e. to......more

In this relatively short exploration of one of humanity's most distinguishing traits, Ian Leslie quickly formulates a definite point of view, but backs it up with good studies, strong interviews and a clear, winning writing style. His basic contention is that curiosity is what has driven scientific a......more

We hear the term “intellectual curiosity” bantered about so often these days. Ian Leslie goes beyond the rhetoric to remove any ambiguity about what this term really means and why it’s something that we need to embrace. He does so without preaching and also shows the reader HOW to accomplish the emb......more

A great book on the power of curiosity. I’ve become somewhat obsessed with the idea of question-asking and was looking forward to some research for some future writing. This book was helpful and did not disappoint. Leslie constructed the book around three parts. The first was a dive into how curiosit......more