Overall, a good read. It was difficult to stay focused- I put it down repeatedly- but whenver I came back to read again, there was another interesting nugget of information that caught my interest.

In the tradition of Malcolm Gladwell's books (Tipping Point, etc), Simplexity uses vignettes to explain complex theories behind...well why things are so complex when they should be simple. The book, however, fails to hold the reader's attention in the same way the Gladwell's books do. Also, this book provides quite a bit of human nature and quite a bit of mathematical explanations. But neither of these is given enough print to fully flesh out the theory, examples, or to present a solution. The author doesn't even provide a bibliography so the reader can look deeper into certain issues. Some of the chapters cover topics that have always interested me, so I know right where to look on my bookshelf for more information.

In short, as a crash course on Complexity theory, this is a good starting point. I just wish the author provided a next step. For books that consider human behavior more purely (as opposed to physicists and mathematicians giving our behavior equations), there are far better places to start. ( )

This book seems to have a great idea but it does not really go anywhere. There are some interesting facts and good review of some complex problems that were solved in the past.

But in the end the main idea fails to come together. Yes a guppie is more complicated than a star, and epidemics are sometimes really simple to solve, etc. There are many facts like this that are engaging by themselves but not really related. ( )

I looked forward to reading this book, since it seemed like a good non-fiction book, but in truth I had a really hard time finishing it. The main premise was promising by the writing was not as engaging as it could have been.

This book was a bit of a conundrum for me as it ran both hot and cold. I found myself either utterly engrossed or completely disinterested at various points not only through the entirety of the book, but even page to page within each chapter.
The highlights were in the details and specific examples given to support and/or explain the various questions posed. There was some fascinating anecdotal evidence mixed up with obscure facts bordering on trivia. These, taken by themselves, made up for some interesting reading.
Where the book fell flat, however, was in the extrapolation of these facts into an overarching hypotheses which purported to explain the concept (even the Study) of "Complexity".
Too much of the writing seemed forced toward meeting the objective of supporting the innately conflicted view of complexity as it was defined by the author. I didn't really care for all of the chapter treatments as some of these seem to have been borrowed from other serious studies, be they economical, social, scientific or psychological, and reworked into a framework to fill out the book's theme.
In general the writing was engaging and forthright. By midway through the book, however, I felt that it wasn't living up to the promise of the theme and I found myself losing interest as I read further.
Overall I do not believe this book is a cohesive view of its subject since the chapters were so disjointed. While it is certainly not a waste of time to read, don't expect to come away with a satisfying clarified view of what "complexity studies" mean in their own right. ( )