I recommend The Numbers Game by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot for anyone who would like a better understanding of the numbers that are reported in the news. Every day it seems we are drowned by numbers—whether it’s unemployment statistics, fuel efficiency of cars, or reports of the efficacy of a new drug, we get a lot of numbers thrown at us. To prevent us from going numb from numbers, the authors of The Numbers Game explain the tips, tricks, and techniques they use to analyze numbers in the news. Both authors worked on the BBC radio show “More or Less”, a show dedicated to examining numbers in the headlines. The authors learned how to spot numbers that are misleading or numbers that have lost their real meaning by being taken out of context. In each chapter of the book, the authors focus on a specific way that a number from the news can be misleading, and then they explain how to clarify what the number really means. For example, if our government claims that a new tax cut will save the average tax payer $1,800 then, on your next tax return, should you expect to save that much money, less than that much, or maybe even more than that much? The authors explain why, in this case, “the average tax payer” can be quite misleading—the highest earners in America greatly skew the amount earned by all tax payers, and thereby skew the amount saved by “the average tax payer”.

After reading this book, it can be discouraging to know how many different ways numbers can be misrepresented, but the authors warn us not to completely give up and tune out all of the numbers that we hear. They argue that we are better off if we take the time to understand what the numbers are really telling us. After all, numbers aren’t going away and, despite all the ways that they can be abused, numbers remain one of the best tools for learning about the world around us. As voters, we owe it to ourselves to try to understand the information on issues, such as health care or environmental policy, that we hear in the news.

Reviewed by David McCoy