I got a strong recommendation the other day for the work of David Spiegelhalter, a U.K. statistician that colleagues with AstroVirtual find incredible.
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Chuck - recommended (by many people) book about Covid numbers
By the guy who wrote the now-classic ‘The Art of Statistics’
Brian Julius just endorsed him (Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter) on a podcast, as the best
Regards
Art
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Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately(?), I was underwhelmed. Here's my reply to Art:
Art, thank you for this recommendation. I sent for both books. The classic is indeed classic. Highly recommended, very very well done.
Alas, I cannot report the same for the COVID book. The book is pocket-sized, 4” x 7” instead of the 6” x 9” of the other one. And, it is printed in very small type, like 7 point type maximum. Physically unreadable, although under a magnifying lens (I have an 8x10” magnifier that can render it passably readable). And when you read it, it is done in generalities and non-specific graphs and wording that would leave someone who knows the data saying “WHAT?”
I thought, maybe this was an el cheapo knockoff from China or something, but apparently this was the original printing.
The reviews are clear that this was a rush job, to try to capture something at the end of the first pandemic year, and that the authors (there are two) did not do a good job in several respects. I concur.
All the same, it is the best I have seen to date on the topic, which gives me encouragement for my own draft. Still a virgin territory in terms of meaningful data and analysis.
Given their reputation, I think they stubbed their toe. Too bad.
All the best
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Book writing is not for the faint of heart. Neither are statistics. And readership, measured in sales terms are hardly sanguine, for nearly all topics, even popular ones like books for the lovelorn, or treatises about Narcissistic Rage, or the favorite breeds of dogs.
A deep discussion with a colleague today raised the question -- aren't blogs, podcasts, short essays, and video vignettes far better communication mechanisms in this age?
And the short answer is YES, and maybe even the longer answer. But books do still have a place in my view. They are more durable, more findable over time, and more complete. Essays must be collected and collated to cover a broad topic. Videos can be compelling for the first 30 seconds, and maybe pithy enough to merit a five minute 'watch'. And podcasts, with a commanding compelling voice, can be very satisfying, if ephemeral. Blogs, of which this is one, have some lasting value, but it is akin to another lost art, Journaling. We've just crossed 400,000 posting views in mine, but the 'voice' is scattered over myriad topics with little cross-correlation or time-sequential development.
Lament, lament . . . so what's your point, Charlie?
The point is that I have gotten considerable pushback over the idea of doing a COVID anthology, for a variety of reasons, and I have mostly persevered and have produced a trial volume at this point, for which I need to decide what to do with it. And, the advice reminds me of similar discussions as the Hewlett-Packard book stimulated at this time in its evolution.
Let me review one observation that my co-author Ray Price had during that HP book preparation time. We were challenged that we weren't covering one division's products very deeply, certainly to the desired depth that a colleague from that division desired, for which he said "you are claiming to be definitive and thorough, but . . . ."
The book wound up 656 pages, a very big book by Stanford Press standards, so presumably many things could be covered in such a tome. But HP in 2007, as we finished the draft, was a $125 Billion revenue per year company, with another $25 Billion in spnoffs, and well more than 100 separate operating divisions still running. The company legacy was approaching seventy years. So imagine trying to describe "in any depth whatsoever" how a newly hatched $50 million product line for one division experienced its five year initiation and sales development period. Equal page-time would give one-third of one page to that story, right?
So authors have to find the essence of the key stories, and both generalize and condense them to make any coherent presentation. We named some 442 HP employees along the way, vs. the high count of 46 in Mike Malone's contemporary HP book, so we tried!
The same with COVID. Big topic, affecting virtually every country of the 200 in the world, with nearly a billion identified infected, with more than 7 million known dead (and doubtless twice that manner or more). How can you cover that with adequate conviction that 'the right stories' have been distilled into the mix? Ah, that is the author dilemma.
And, crazy as it sounds, I suspect that I'll persevere. Wish me luck.
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