Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters
Japanese translation: Counting: ‘Data zensei no jidai wo ikinuku suugakuryoku no migaki kata’
With a little help from Dr. Seuss and Cookie Monster, Stone shows why no number can be objective. In order to count, one must first decide what counts as a fish and what counts as a cookie. From there on, counting the things we grownups care most about is no child’s play.
“A delightful takedown of our unreasonable worship of numbers. . . . Enthralling evidence that there is less to numbers than meet the eye.”
– Kirkus starred review
“Deborah Stone’s mind-altering insight is that the numbers we use to capture the human experience are themselves a form of creative storytelling. They shouldn’t end the conversation but spark a deeper and richer one. Counting deserves five stars for showing why five stars can never tell the whole story.”
– Jacob S. Hacker, co-author of Let Them Eat Tweets
“Deborah Stone’s book, reckoning with the mechanisms and myths of numbers—but also with their morality and politics—adds up to a profound meditation on this essential yet so rarely considered marker of the human. An enlightenment and a call for justice.”
– James Carroll, author of 21 books and winner of the National Book Award, PEN Literary Award, and National Jewish Book Award
“How does Deborah Stone keep doing this? She has an unerring ability to see our culture in an entirely new light and transform the way we think. Every page sparkles with insight and delight.”
– Colonel Wallace Earl Walker, PhD, U.S. Army, retired and founding dean of the Citadel School of Business
