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I wonder. I wonder. In English, we use the word for miracle/marvel. In German, it’s, „Ich frage mich,�� �� I ask myself. I often find myself deep underground, lost in a Wikipedia tunnel, and I ask myself, “well? How did I get here?��

What overtakes me on these feverish quests of curiosity, where I lose all sense of time and lose sight of the original mission? What dragon am I chasing? The driver, I believe, is the a-ha moment. The hit of dopamine that accompanies a truly profound a-ha is so satisfying and powerful, that I can lose myself in a quest for a hit of enlightenment. A true a-ha can feel like unlocking a room in your house that you didn’t even know was there. (Have you ever had that dream? I have. Many times.)

I picked up Curious because I wanted to understand the trancelike state I fall I to when I’m trying to satisfy my curiosity. Or maybe just confirm my hypothesis. Or give me something upon which I could build a better hypothesis.

But this book did not give me what I wanted. Its central problem is its weak thesis, which I choose to sum up uncharitably as: “Being curious is superior to being incurious.�� which comes off like, “here’s why smart is better than dumb.��

He trots out all the old favorites as exemplars. Steve Jobs. Walt Disney. Charlie Munger. Yawn yawn YAWN!!! Yes I’m rage-yawning. I almost crashed my car from how sleepy this book made me.

There is one chapter that I found worthwhile, a long one, called The Importance of Knowing. He believes that progressive trends in education -- those that have lead educators to reject instruction/information as being too rigid, in order to move toward the looser goal of instilling a love of learning -- are detrimental to kids. He argues, successfully in my view, that kids need that information, that it’s not enough to simply point children toward their passions. Instruction and information allow kids to build foundational networks of info in the mind that provide context necessary to understand and store new information. Personally, I discovered long ago that info without a contextual envelope is impossible to remember. It’s like it doesn’t have a location on the server. A folder in the file cabinet. It whirls around loose, like a plastic bag in a pickup bed, then flies out as soon as it gets the chance. The Importance of Knowing is likely to be the one chapter of the book that will stick with me, and as I encounter new information about this debate, it will meet up and interact with Leslie’s view, filed in the same folder in my brain.

Overall, I can’t say that I recommend this book. It is not completely a waste of time, but there isn’t much here that adds a fresh viewpoint.

Lastly, the publisher did not cast the right narrator for the audiobook. The narrator did not try to match the intended tone of the author. This dissonance was exacerbated by the fact that the author is British, and the narrator is an American whose sleepy tone seemed to be implying that all this is quite sad, isn't it.