Instant Expert: A Visual Guide to the Skills You’ve Always Wanted

We rated this book:

$19.99


This cute little hardcover book, Instant Expert is a tough one to justifiably review. Nigel Holmes put together scores and scores of fields of “How to be a…” in six categories from Practical Traveller to Fun Stuff. Each one is on a double page, sometimes more, and each is illustrated with charming tiny sketches and brief descriptions, like under acupuncturist, showing the many trigger points on the body where you insert the needle, also giving the Chinese terminology, and a brief paragraph on regulations to be an acupuncturist. Similarly you can be an expert Formula 1 race car driver, a concierge, internet video maker, gold panner, or carpet dealer. It goes on like this for the length of the book, and it’s a good, entertaining reading but most readers (like this reviewer) will quickly tire of them. Who were the intended readers? And what’s the point of this collection? Purely entertainment? Surely you don’t seriously be expected to be an expert as a maple syrup tapper on two brief pages. Yet the graphics are great and so are the descriptions. How the author chose the various fields is also a puzzle. The book is cute but its purpose is questionable.


Reviewed By:

Author
Star Count 3/5
Format Hard
Page Count 204 pages
Publisher Lonely Planet
Publish Date 2014-Dec-01
ISBN 9781743219997
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue January 2015
Category Reference
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