Book Review: 'Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words'

On November 24, 2015, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published cartoonist Randall Munroe’s “Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words,” a clever mix of science and humor in which the ex-NASA scientist behind the webcomic “xkcd” explains some of the most interesting topics in existence using only the “ten hundred” words that people use the most.  

Munroe, who also wrote last year’s best-selling “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” explains over 40 things that range from the “shared space house” (International Space Station) to the “tree of life” using simple terms like “mouth water maker” (saliva gland) and “sky boat” (airplane). He even uses this style to describe parts of “Thing Explainer” itself; the Index becomes “Things in This Book Page By Page,” and the foreword is “Page Before the Book Starts.”

Here are a few of the topics readers will find in “Thing Explainer”:

·  food-heating radio boxes (microwaves)

·  tall roads (bridges)

·  computer buildings (datacenters)

·  the shared space house (the International Space Station)

·  the other worlds around the sun (the solar system)

·  the big flat rocks we live on (tectonic plates)

·  the pieces everything is made of (the periodic table)

·  planes with turning wings (helicopters)

·  boxes that make clothes smell better (washers and dryers)

·  the bags of stuff inside you (cells)

Every topic is explained in simple terms and with detailed blueprints that include Munroe’s trademark stick figures from “xkcd.” Here, for example, is what Munroe says about the now-retired Space Shuttles in the book’s first chapter:

“Flying Space Truck

“Most space boats are built to be used only once, but these boats flew to space and back many times. 

We built five of them, and they did a lot of the work of building the space house.

“After over a hundred trips to space, two of the trucks had blown up, and we decided the three we had left were too old to keep using.”

“Thing Explainer” is very good at, well, explaining things. With brevity and sharp wit, Munroe can take something as complex as a helicopter (“sky boat with turning wings”) and make it so understandable for almost anyone.