What We Ask Google A Surprisingly Hopeful History of Humankind

By: Simon Rogers

Published by Penguin Group, 2026-05-05

<b>Ever wondered what goes through other people’s minds—their silly questions, their inner anxieties, hopes, and dreams?<br></b><br>In <i>What We Ask Google,</i> 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.<br><br>Every June, for instance, the world sees a spike in searches for “How to help a bee.” Reassuringly, people consistently want to know, “How often can you donate plasma?” And despite superficial differences (such as the deeply divided world map of cat people vs. dog people), humanity has a lot more in common than we often acknowledge. After all, everywhere around the world, it’s two a.m. when parents want to know how to get their baby to sleep.<br><br>Brimming with insights that vary from the playful to the profound, <i>What We Ask Google</i> 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.