I guess I expected too much from this book, given its not so humble title. The selection of topics is okay. But if you've been into the science blogosphere and/or TED for a while you will probably be familiar with most of the ideas presented in the book already.

The essays are all really short, most are not longer than a typical blogpost. For many topics a bit more background to the ideas would have been a good thing. If you want a crash course in modern scientific ideas (without actually learning much besides the general existence of those ideas) the book may be nice. Otherwise you can safely skip this one.