I was a bit disappointed to see that Ben Goldacre’s new book was just a collection of his mostly previously published writing - the majority of the book is made up of his Bad Science columns from the Guardian, and you can read a lot of that on his website (which I would recommend as a way to while away an idle afternoon). I was really hoping to see Goldacre get his teeth into subjects a bit more than he gets the chance to do in the length of a newspaper column.

The curious thing is that the short pieces of writing become one of those “greater than the sum of its parts” things: you get to see in ten minutes of reading how the same subjects have been revisited over several years of writing; and although you mostly have to join the dots yourself it turns out to be a very worthwhile read. Occasionally Goldacre adds footnotes - mostly these are where someone has told him that he needs to wait a year or five for some results to be published and the footnote points out that a year or ten has now passed without that happening (big surprise all round…). I’ve certainly read a fair chunk of this book before so I was surprised to enjoy reading it again quite so much. Despite being a bit of a doorstop it’s a book that you can read in three minute chunks, though the short articles reel you in with that “just one more” thing and you suddenly find you’ve burnt tonight’s tea.

Definitely looking forward to his next book.