Whether it's the way Johnson writes, the topics he's discussing, or the vantage point from which he approaches each subject, How We Got to Now seemed to know my language and the way in which I needed to hear it all. In its scientific commentary on convergence of ideas, the exploration of the events or innovations that directly related to the development of larger, more progressive inventions—what Johnson calls the the adjacent possible, How We Got to Now is fascinating, expansive, and (strangely enough) beautiful.

There's a tone from Johnson that reflected my amazement at what and when certain people seemed to be ahead of the idea game. Whole sections devoted to large (sometimes unfathomably so) subjects—Glass, Cold, Sound, Clean, Time, Light—but presented almost conversationally, as if you were sitting, front and center, in a class led by this man as your professor. What he does, Johnson does very well here. I could read multiple volumes of this kind of book. Don't miss out and make the mistake of skipping either the Introduction (subtitled: Robot Historians and the Hummingbird's Wing) or the Conclusion (subtitled: The Time Travelers), as they both are as essential and engrossing as any of the other given chapters.