An Answer for Everything: 200 Infographics to Explain the World

by Delayed Gratification

The world’s most mind-boggling questions, answered through 200 brilliantly clever and addictive infographics.

What’s the secret to living past a hundred? What’s going on in China? Are we running out of sand? And how many chickens are there?

In An Answer for Everything , 200 of the world’s most mind-boggling questions are explained by way of brilliantly clever and addictive infographics. Some will make you giggle, others hit like a sucker punch, and then there are the slow burners, where you can geek out over a data set for hours.

Authored by the team behind Delayed Gratification , the world’s best slow journalism magazine, these deeply researched infographics are a compelling and darkly funny way to see the world around us with new eyes.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Reference, Trivia, Politics, Science

320 pages, Hardcover

Published January 4, 2022

Reviews

[Emilie Guan]

if this doesn’t make me more knowledgeable than 70% of people who take obscure geography jetpunk quizzes i’m rioting

[Matt Lillywhite]

Fascinating book filled with lots of interesting questions/answers.

Worth reading if you enjoy learning about history (and where humanity might be going)!

[🌶 peppersocks 🧦]

Reflections and lessons learned:
Ooo, a great sharing facts book - I don’t think that it worked as well on kindle so will be ordering as a print book for a family copy - like a condensed set of the interesting bits from encyclopaedias with visual representations to show the overlayed data

[Marie :)]

This is a really interesting book with a bunch of fun facts about the world. I love the way the information is organized in the infographics. Perfect for a coffee table book or if you're looking to be inspired by certain topics/research.

[Jed Walker]

Some of the content/writing is a little sketchy but the info graphics and charts are stunning. Ridiculously creative. Brilliant.

[Graydon Jones]

This book is so much fun. Brilliant questions, data, and design!

[pauline ✞ -new bio!-]

at last a nonfiction book i like… this book has this cool little drawing thingys too. i also like the delayed gratification magazine too:) its really heavy the book but so much info!

[WiseB]

A great book using infographics to reveal and present multi-dimensional perspectives/answers on a wide range of questions. Every question in the book uses a different kind of presentation that enriches one's mind visually in the answers based on data or survey results.

[Richard Bakare]

It’s easy to just reach for your phone or tablet to answer a debate around the dinner or coffee table. A quick web search will likely land you at a Wikipedia page that will give you an answer but the experience is flat. A simple yes or no and the humble brag or face blush depending on which side of the debate you were on. What’s cool about this book is that you can get to the answers of the same questions but in an infographic format that replaces the long form text of the web. The team behind “Delayed Gratification” brings us a new rendition of the encyclopedia that invites interactivity and further discovery and doesn’t involve scrolling or blue light. The iconographic and easy to read diagrams make it accessible for the layman and expert to follow along on any topic. Backed by detailed research, data science, along with referenced and respectable sources, you can count on accuracy and deep insights in every chapter. So debates quickly transition from divisive to side by side classroom experiences. It’s a giant book of facts for the coffee table that will keep us out of internet rabbit holes and hopefully bridge some divides. I love it and recommend it for everyone’s living room.

[Maileen Hamto]

How many chickens are there? What’s the best country in the world? How long have we got? The answers to these questions (plus many more) are found in An Answer for Everything, delivered by the creators of Delayed Gratification magazine. Emphasizing the power and utility of data visualization, this highly informative and engaging collection of infographics tell compelling stories about our fascinating and, at times, unsettling world.

Data runs the world and the decisions that affect all aspects of our lives: from personal purchasing choices to information with a global impact. Editors Rob Orchard and Marcus Webb focus on the long-term implications of stories and events by focusing on facts, stripped of bias. Through beautiful illustrations, art director Christian Tate covers a wide berth of topics: from space travel to the formula for writing a hit Christmas song to the gun crisis in the US. The elegant graphics bring together research and design to explain complex and multi-layered data sets.

More than an entertaining assemblage of fun trivia, the book also highlights sobering stats and charts about worrisome trends, such as the state of the climate and economic inequities. Seeing the concentration of immense wealth among a handful of white American billionaires and understanding human impact on Earth’s biodiversity may motivate readers to make different choices and take resolute action.

This review was originally published in Portland Book Review.

[Eleni Owens]

This is one of my favourite non-fiction books ever with its easy to understand info graphics and fun to learn about topics, answering questions that you didnt know you needed answered.
The format makes this book easy to read in bite-sized peices and fun to read and show to freinds and family. I found the questions interesting and relevant to everyday life and i would recommend it to anyone who loves facts and info graphics.

[Alex Craigie]

I bought a copy of this as a gift for someone, had a look at it and bought another copy to keep for myself. It's a remarkable book that presents information in a visual format using data, and covers a huge range of topics from the factual to the 'what if' kind of question.
It's one of those books that people reach for if they see it lying around - and then they find it difficult to put down again as they sample the alluring pages. It's a book for all ages apart from the very young.

[Andrea]

Very nicely done. I borrowed it from the library, and I think it really works better as a "coffee table" sort of book. Something you pick up now and again, decipher one or two Infographics, and pick up again some other time. Trying to read it with a deadline led to information overload, so that I didn't give some of the pages the interest they deserved. Though there were some that simply didn't interest me.

[American Wolf]

This book was interesting it had lots of information and it's nice if you are a visionary person. I would recommend to teens just because they do have deaths and that sort of thing in it. It seemed like it was more UK but had USA things and it did have the world in it too. I will list what categories they divide it up by.

Who on earth are you?
Who's the greatest?
What do we want?
How do we save the planet?
What's in our nature?
Are you not entertained?
Is there anybody out there?
How do I make friends and influence people?
Am I living my best life?
What's the worst that could happen?
Any other questions?

[Errol Laurie]

Lots of fun dumb stuff. Great coffee table book. Second only to the coffee table book about coffee tables

[Barb Johnson]

This book was great! I learned lots and I had fun while doing it.

[Katie Smith]

Fun book of infographics about a variety of topics.

[Sharon]

Loved this book, fascinating information shown in a interesting manner.

[Brenda]

Mostly for UK

[Mohamed Tahar Hamada]

Review to come

[Stephanie]

Facts presented as graphics. From books to read to moon waste.

[Brian]

A very cool infographic book.

[Elaine]

Beautiful book for infographics enthusiasts!

[Brian]

Loved the graphics, but is a UK book and some of the info is focused on that.

[Lorie]

Loved!
Borrowed from library, very cool, lots of quirky facts my kids loved as well. Super interesting.

[E]

This has really cool graphics in it, really interesting

[Marília Ferreira da Cunha]

Desde que me lembro que gosto de mapas e infografias. Só recentemente descobri que há uma área de estudo totalmente dedicada ao tema (visualização de dados). Ainda mais recentemente, comecei a usar a visualização de dados (e os mapas e as infografias) como parte do meu trabalho de analista de relações internacionais.

A Delayed Gratification é uma das melhores revistas para quem gosta de analisar o mundo com calma. São, aliás, os criadores do movimento de slow journalism, jornalismo lento, com tempo para analisar os detalhes do que se passou e passa no mundo. Estas 200 infografias, no estilo característico da revista, tratam temas sérios (como conflitos) e menos sérios (quem foi o melhor 007?) e têm sido uma inspiração para o meu trabalho.

[Gemma Armarego]

Great for visual learners that love obscure facts. The infographics are well presented and the information seems to have been obtained from good sources.