Munroe takes simple "how to" questions like how to fill a swimming pool or how to how to move a house, and supplies scientifically realistic but completely insane solutions. For example, fusion reactions create water, so could you fill a pool by setting off a hydrogen bomb? Could you strap four jet engines to a house and fly it to another location? Some questions are less commons place, such as how to build a lava moat around your house or how to slow the passage of time.  My favorite piece was on how to generate electricity on Mars by attaching a tether to one of Mars' moons and have it drag a wind turbine through the Martian atmosphere at 530 meters per second.

It warms my heart a little that Munroe just automatically assumes humanity would be leaving the planet with all its pets on board, not just water and food, although I'm reminded of an e-book I read a while back where the fact that we left our pets behind was a significant point in the world-building.

I'm enjoying this, but one drawback of listening to it rather than reading it is that, by the time Munroe has finished some of his answers, I've forgotten what the original questions were.

I'm also amazed that some of these questions have been asked by lots of people. Are there really that many people who've wondered whether we can destroy tropical cyclones by nuking them? Then again, this kind of thinking is why games like Goat Simulator are so fun, even if only for a little while. And in the games it doesn't matter if you accidentally destroy everything because you wanted to see if you could do that stupid thing you just thought of.

I'm sure this would be better in print, with the illustrations. There may be a way for me to access the illustrations via Overdrive, but even if I knew how, I don't particularly want to stop every few minutes to look at them. We'll see if this negatively impacts my listening experience too much.

This is long enough to count for Snakes and Ladders, but I'll probably keep it on reserve for a future square.

Randall Munroe has an extremely unique style, a blend of humor and simplicity used to explain extremely complicated things. "There's lots of stuff under the front cover of a car. The biggest thing is usually the fire box which turns the wheels to push the car." In this example, Munroe uses a unique blend of comedy and simplistic language to explain something as complex as a car engine. 

The aforementioned unique style of Munroe, a blend of humor and simplicity, is what makes him extremely popular. This amount of uniqueness sets Munroe apart from all other authors, especially ones who write a similar type of genre. The fact that he is set apart from all other similar authors makes his books enjoyable to say the least.