This book is a compilation of blog entries from the Economist magazine's website. Standage, a deputy editor at the Economist and author of six other books, assembles in this volume a fascinating assortment of facts and explanations of said facts that span curiosities, cross-country differences, economics, leisure, technology, and science. As one would expect from blog entries, each vignette (there are 106 in all) is short and to the point, running one to two pages. Each poses a fact or an observation (many of which are little known or obscure) and proceeds with a succinct explanation. Examples include why so many Japanese adults are adopted, why private schooling is on its way out in Britain, and what machine learning is all about. The vignettes are drawn from The Economist explains blog and the Graphic detail blog, both at economist.com. Authorship of the vignettes varies. Go Figure makes for light, entertaining reading and can easily be taken up and put down at will. It is suitable for undergraduates as generally informative, so it might be assigned as recommended reading in a freshman seminar. Journalism students will find it useful as an exemplar of top-notch cultural, business, and science writing and reporting. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers. --Kevin J. Murphy, Oakland University