An informational book filled with interesting information, A Field Guide to Lies, as its title implies, teaches you how to identify the lies within what may seem to be statistical information, or in other words, “fact”. Although the topic may seem dull to some, the information covered within the book is interesting, and the language that Levitin uses creates a witty and amusing tone during his delivery. Most interestingly, or most importantly, Levitin covers an important source that many people automatically believe as reliable: the news.
Due to the TV as well as the internet, people have access to news as well as articles 24/7, and due to the news being considered a reliable third party source most of the time, people are inclined to believe what they see or read. However, Levitin covers small differences within wording or delivery that either misleads people or completely fooled. Levitin especially emphasizes the fact that “statistics are not facts”, which I found to be very interesting, as we are taught from a young age to believe that statistics are, in fact, “fact”, as they are numbers, or “cold and hard data”, as people like to say.
In this book, Levitin opens up a whole new way to see and interpret data, as well as bring up some very nuanced and open ended questions and analysis, which all comes together to create an informative yet very thought provoking book that is worth a read.
Review Written by Elizabeth Lee