Critically, the authors stress the foundational importance of precise quantification—'you have to do the right analysis to get the right answer'—while also emphasizing the need to report the results effectively ... Concise, breezy and pragmatic, Making Numbers Count clocks in at a spare 135 pages of primary text. If you started reading it on the Acela when you left New York, you’d finish it by the time you arrived in Boston—with more than enough time left over to peruse the endnotes, review the consolidated advice in the appendix and ponder the authors’ core maxim, which comes to a mere eight words: 'Use whole numbers, not too many. Preferably small.'
A unique popular math book ... Even though 'nobody really understands numbers' and most efforts to talk about them fail, the authors do a good job showing otherwise. In 22 short chapters, they deliver a painless, ingenious education in how to communicate statistics and numbers to people who find them confusing ... Packed with tables, anecdotes, and amusing facts, the narrative makes math accessible. Astute advice for businesspeople and educators.
Though the authors write that their tips are aimed at both 'numbers people' and 'non numbers people,' the text tends to read like a corporate training course, and their somewhat dismissive view of math as incomprehensible and useless in the 'real world' will strike many as blatantly wrong. Still, 'non numbers' people will find plenty to consider.
