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What We Ask Google

A surprisingly hopeful picture of humankind

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What We Ask Google

By: Simon Rogers
Narrated by: Simon Rogers
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Brought to you by Penguin.

Ever wondered what goes through other people’s minds – their silly questions, their inner anxieties, hopes and dreams?

In What We Ask Google, the company's Data Editor Simon Rogers explores insights from the world's biggest dataset: an epic snapshot, two decades long and counting, of our collective brain. What it reveals about us might surprise you.

  • In June the UK sees a spike in searches for ‘how to help a bee’
  • 'Where is Chuck Norris?' is the 17th most common English language question of all time
  • Around the world, it’s 2am when parents want to know how to get their baby to sleep
  • Reassuringly, people consistently want to know, ‘How often can you donate plasma?’

Brimming with insights that vary from the playful to the profound, What We Ask Google delves into the momentous and the mundane secrets of what we ask when we get the chance to ask anything, offering a surprisingly hopeful picture of humankind.

'This view from the other side of the search box is both charming and insightful, tapping into a deep well of curiosity.' Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up

© Simon Rogers 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026

 History & Culture Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions Technology & Society
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Critic reviews

Intimate, touching, momentous and downright human
This view from the other side of the search box is both charming and insightful, tapping into a deep well of curiosity. (Tim Harford, author of How to Make the World Add Up)
In a time when the news is so relentlessly gloomy, this book provides a ray of hope.
Entertaining and enlightening (Hal Varian, Former Chief Economist for Google)
What We Ask Google is a deeply human window into our shared curiosity, and the future it is already creating. By analysing billions of the searches, Rogers reveals how those patterns – when seen at scale – offer a rare, data-driven understanding of who we are and how societies respond to uncertainty. This is the most honest portrait of humanity you’ll ever read. (Amy Webb, author of The Signals Are Talking and The Big Nine)
Deserves a place on any bathroom bookshelf. Just beware “dead butt”, or gluteal amnesia, a symptom of our ever more sedentary lifestyles that, we now know, is steadily rising up the search rankings.
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