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1. It does a great job of catering to different backgrounds of readers
   As a physicist in a slightly related field, this book was magic! It does a great job of catering to different backgrounds of readers, great solid examples. I also enjoyed the interspersing with historical events, like a case study. It reminded me of an Umberto Eco novel.Some topics may be more appreciated by an experienced reader such as Levy flights, but the author does a great job of reviewing ideas on Levy flights and explaining in the context.

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2. Great topic, good insights, bit hard to follow
   Barabasi is clearly a great thinker on this topic, but seems to know more than he shares in this book. The patterns of our behaviour seem completely predictable, but the book is a bit hard to follow sometimes and lacks concrete examples to support its case. That’s not a big problem, because it is still great fun to read and discusses some major problems of today.

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3. The Best Lecture You Will Ever Attend
   Dr. Barabasi is good; not just good at explaining the esoteric relationships between Albert Einstein’s desk, your e-mail inbox, Brownian Motion, Levy Flights and simple random walks, his book is an outstanding example of how to teach. Dr. Barabasi posits that the efforts of all living and, presumably free, creatures follow certain statistical rules and that ultimately an understanding of such rules may allow scientists to predict human behaviors as they now predict the weather. He concludes that as our understanding of human behaviors and ability to amass data increases, we are not approaching a Brave New World so much as recreating the small close-knit villages of years past, something to be both welcomed and feared.By combining the exposition of the science behind his thesis with a gripping historical narrative about a famous Hungarian revolutionary, the author has created a story that pulls the reader through the difficult ideas. The book is much more interested in explaining how knowledge and understanding have advanced than it is in explaining the minutiae of the science itself. By drawing analogies from familiar events and situations, the author skillfully hooks the reader for an illuminating journey. This book would be a great present for students of any age because it portrays the glamorous side of the scientific endeavor and the fact that new truths are hiding in everyday experience.It is a cliche to be sure, but I could not put the book down once I started it. Such tension is expected in some genres, but to be achieved by one of the limited offerings of general science was a fine surprise–one that I hope to share with others.Highly Recommended

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4. I really enjoyed it
   The author Albert Laszlo Barabasi is preeminent researcher on the science of networks, but turns out to also be a surprisingly good journalist & historian & writer. He shares his inconclusive work on the predictability of humans & human events with his primary insight being : along with parallels on how cells connect proteins & how animals hunt food, Human individuals & groups seem to work and fight and play in short flourishes of activity followed by periods of nothing. The pattern isn’t random, it follows a pattern he calls “bursty.”Inspired by his observation that: We all tend to make no phone calls then several. We send no emails then several. We have routes that we keep very regularly without variation & then we have bursts of random travel (vacation). …When he investigates further historical data shows this burst pattern is even true all through history across hunter gatherer patterns & how wars erupt. So Barabasi wonders if , with all our digital trails of time stamped texts, voicemails, and internet searches, which add up to a massive data set of statistics that track our movements, our decisions, our lives… Could AI predict our future locations? Our future choices?It’s an interesting inquiry & Barabasi is clearly a very bright & creative mind, but 2 things didn’t work for me: The 1st is that the premise is all we get, there aren’t many other insights nor breakthroughs. & the 2nd is that while the structure of the book is very artful –> He changes the channel back & forth, jumping across a series of parallels : from this inspiration for his research & personal life, then recounting a 16th century nightmarish medieval crusade launched in his homeland of Transylvania, & an exposé of sorts telling the story of an unfortunately post-9/11 arabic innocent artist profiled & repeatedly detained by the FBI & the artist turns the years into very original art by documenting himself & making it all publicAll good stories , to be sure, & well-written… But I think they distracted rather than added. All this being said, Barabasi is a person with whom I’d love to have dinner.

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5. By the page number 100, I could not understand what the writer wants to say. So many stories which seem to be unrelated.By the page no-183, I could understand only two pages that he is talking about power laws. Lengthy stories.Reading this book took a lot of my patience.Language and sentences could be simple.Ultimately I tried to complete it by speed reading i.e. skipping some page but latter on I had leave it unfinished.

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6. Incredibly well-written scientific book, keeps you excited throughout by combining two very different stories together!

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7. rispettati i tempi di spedizioneun libro interessante fatto di storie legate allo studio delle reti complesse…p a s

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8. Dans ce livre fourmillant de références historiques, où les chapitres étayant les propos de l’auteur sont entrecoupés de l’histoire hongroise du XVIème siècle, il est parfois difficile de s’y retrouver. La thèse défendue arrive tardivement, et les exemples présentés entre temps sont difficiles à comprendre faute d’explications. En outre, certains arguments sont parfois un peu légers : deux évènements suivant une loi de puissance sont tout de même très similaires dans leur construction, même si les rapports sont différents.Sur le sujet, j’ai largement préféré “Obliquity: Why Our Goals Are Best Achieved Indirectly” de John Kay, et “Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen” de Mark Buchanan, qui apportent un point de vue complémentaire sur “le pourquoi du comment” de certains phénomènes.Dommage…

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9. Barabasiはネットワークで有名な学者ですが、本書物は自然界に潜む不思議な事象をエッセイ風に記述したユニークな書物です。

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