Could Should Might Don't

Reviews / Votes

This is the book on the future we'd been waiting for - an impassioned argument for replacing lazy certainties and fearful fantasies with a rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering stance towards what might be coming next -- OLIVER BURKEMAN I couldn't put down this brilliant, eye-opening work - it's just the kind we need at the moment. Foster has spent a lifetime exploring tomorrows, and his message is clear: serious thinking about the future is essential if we hope to shape it rather than be blindsided by it -- DAVID EAGLEMAN It's a rare and wondrous thing to read someone who can bring potential futures to life without being stuck in retreads of yet more takes on AI and robotics. Nick Foster's Could, Should Might, Don't blows a draught of fresh and thrilling air through a genre that has lately become stale, repetitive and unproductive. It's the kind of book you keep dropping down to your lap as you look up and wonder -- STEPHEN FRY Playful and exploratory * * Observer * * A deeply-considered - and funny - treatise on complacency. A clear-eyed, attentive and intelligent book about the dangers of complacency as we take on our ever more complicated futures -- ALEX McDOWELL Rich with treasures . . . It's impossible to come away from reading this book without thinking differently about the projections, predictions and patterns that we all encounter in boardrooms, popular culture and our own brains * * Irish Times * * Thoughtful . . . Ultimately, the book strikes a hopeful note . . Sage advice and a much-needed perspective on how to build a future that benefits our species' survival * * Kirkus * * Where are we going? Who will we be when we get there? These are the big questions, and we need to know that we don't know enough to answer them. Nick Foster's book is a lightbulb over your head that never goes off, a song about the future that strikes not just technological but conceptual notes. This book is innervisionary, a travel guide for our mind's eye -- QUESTLOVE Rather than more forecasts and projections, Nick brings us the importance of thinking about the future today, in the most accessible and engaging way possible -- ANAB JAIN It's rare to find a book about futures work written so thoughtfully, by someone who's practiced it as such a high level, and is prepared to share insights into what can be an opaque world, and yet can ground it beautifully in stories of everyday life and the possible futures they hold. This is both Nick Foster's method, and his particular skill, and this warm and insightful book balances critique, care, love and hope for this kind of work . . . Generous and generative -- DAN HILL