Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

At first glance, this book could easily be overlooked and dismissed as another "just buy this book and follow my easy steps to becoming a (genius, millionaire, happier person, psychic, master gardener, whatever)" that would utimately leave you disappointed that you couldn't do it. Well, this book is not that. It gets right to the point. It's very well written. It's fun. It's practical. And as long as you take your time to mentally practice what you're learning along the way, you can and should be able to master the techniques in this book. You needn't have any mathematical expertise going in. Of course, the author doesn't promise anything special about what you can do with these abilities, although there are some practical applications suggested along the way. All I can say is that it's fun and gives you something interesting to do with your brain when you're bored. And certainly if you like Math already or are a Math teacher, it can be tremendously helpful. Arthur Benjamin wrote the main content of the book, and Michael Shermer (Skeptic Magazine founder and Scientific American columnist) wrote introductory and closing chapters. These seem a little out of place to me, but they're certainly very good and useful general information about critical thinking. In addition to Bill Nye's (The Science Guy) new intro, James Randi's (famous magician and skeptic) introduction from an earlier edition is included.