Book Reivew: The Magic of Reality by Richard Dawkins

Generally, I liked the book and its ideas. In this case, the title makes a gradual promise (to talk about the magic of reality or, if we decide to go even further, to explain the magic of reality and why reality is actually magical), but I am not too sure whether the author fulfills this promise. On one hand, we have the very, very interesting myths told in the beginning of every chapter, which is quite admirable, since I can imagine how much research all those tales must have required. But then we have theory. I am not saying in any case that the theory was not interesting - what I’m saying is that it wasn’t particularly useful, since most of the things explained are basic scientific facts which are studied in primary and secondary school. To a great extend I feel that I could have spared my time and just skipped that theory and focused more (maybe even only) to the more diverse part of tales and myths. I especially much enjoyed reading the last two chapters, as they were distinctly different from the others before them - they explained interesting theories about perception and how people (in general) perceive what happens to them. They were more psychologically oriented rather than scientific.
I can’t say I didn’t enjoy reading The Magic of Reality, as the writing style of Richard Dawkins is very light and easy to read, but if you are to read it too, I strongly recommend focusing on chapters 4, 8, 11 and 12, which, at least in my opinion, are the ones most worth the time.