Praise for the book
About the book
The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe is a groundbreaking guide to scientific reasoning at the scale of a single life. Based on nearly two decades of work in the Quantified Self community, it distills the techniques of empirical observation into practical patterns anyone can use. With chapters on pain, mood, sleep, digestion, heart rate, hormones, and more, The Quantified Self proves that science is for everybody by showing how to make discoveries about your own life from your own data.
Science journalist Gary Wolf cofounded Quantified Self in 2008 and has spent the years since helping people develop and present their self-research projects. With his colleagues in the Personal Science Research Group—a collaboration that brings together engineering, health care, patient advocacy, and data science—Wolf has shaped the evidence from thousands of small experiments into a step-by-step method that takes just a few minutes each day.
A mathematician uncovers the hidden sleep problem behind his brain fog. A mother spots a blood-glucose pattern in her five-year-old that points to trouble at school. A teenager decides for herself whether hormonal birth control is helping her acne. Dozens of first-person stories ground the book’s techniques in a real-world context while offering an inspiring look at the creativity, courage, humor, and ingenuity of personal science practice around the world.
There is no single protocol that works for everyone. The Quantified Self offers something seismic—an individualized approach that teaches readers how to bring a scientific mindset to their questions about mind, body, work, and life.
Advance praise
“This book is a gift to anyone who has ever wanted to take their life seriously as a site of learning. It is a profoundly practical, clear, kind, hard-earned manual for self-research, and a foundational starting point for current and future health scientists.”
—Eric Hekler, PhD, professor of public health and design, UC San Diego
“A perfect road map to how to actually do personal science to answer questions that matter—whether about a chronic degenerative disease or some other challenge.”
—Eli Pollard, executive director, World Parkinson Coalition
“What is important to you? What mystery are you trying to solve? What’s a hunch you want to test? The Quantified Self will give you the tools, language, and strategies you need to reason your way to a better life.”
—Susannah Fox, author of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care and former CTO, US Department of Health and Human Services
“Elegant, practical, and deeply hopeful, Gary Wolf’s book offers simple, powerful tools for those whose suffering lies beyond the reach of standard medical protocols. A moving invitation for ordinary people to become scientists of their own experience. I’ll be giving it to my patients.”
—Dawn Lemanne, MD, MPH, founder, Oregon Integrative Oncology, and host of the podcast Docs Talk Shop
“A landmark achievement that empowers not only individual citizens, but the whole science community.”
—Gaston Remmers, PhD, board member, European Citizen Science Association, and director, Self-Research Network Netherlands
“Most self-tracking books promise miracles. This one promises something more useful: a method. These experts have distilled nearly two decades of the Quantified Self community into a working guide for asking better questions about your own body and getting answers. The quietly radical claim here—that careful observation, not better sensors, is what turns data into understanding—will be useful to everyone trying to learn more about their health.”
—Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, Yale School of Medicine; founder, Yale Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation; author of The Expert Guide to Beating Heart Disease: What You Absolutely Must Know
Events
- San Francisco Thu Oct 8, 5:30 PM Book Passage, Ferry Building Event page
- New York Tue Oct 13, 6:30–8:30 PM Civic Hall at Union Square Event page
- New York Wed Oct 14, 7:00–8:30 PM (doors 6:30) Columbia Journalism School, Pulitzer Hall Event page
- Stanford Tue Oct 20, 3:00–4:00 PM Paul G. Allen Building, Stanford University Event page · Register for the stream
- Los Angeles Wed Nov 4, 6:30 PM Village Well Books & Coffee, Culver City
More cities are being planned. If you’d like to be involved with planning, have a Show & Tell talk you’d like to give, or simply want to be informed when the remaining dates and venues are confirmed, sign up for the QS newsletter. We’ll send dates, locations, and registration info as soon as they’re set.
Newsletter
Want to know when and where the next Quantified Self events are happening? Sign up for updates—short notes on events, Show & Tells, tools, and the book.
Info
Press & media
For interviews, review copies, and press materials, contact SHARON KUNZ at sharon.kunz@hbgusa.com. For podcast and event inquiries, contact ELLEN YANG at ellen@punctuation-pr.com.
Recent coverage
Silicon Valley’s Earliest Self Trackers
Gary was interviewed for a podcast about the origins of the modern self-tracking movement, by journalist Gabriela Glueck for KQED’s Close All Tabs.
About the author
Gary Isaac Wolf is the cofounder of the Quantified Self movement and author of The Quantified Self: Learning to Observe. His landmark New York Times Magazine cover story brought self-tracking to a broad public, and his TED talk has been viewed more than a million times. A former member of the early editorial team at Wired and the first executive producer of Wired Digital, Wolf is a Kavli Science Journalism Award winner and former Knight Fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in The Best American Science Writing and The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and he currently works with the Personal Science Research Group on methods and tools for individual empirical research.
The Personal Science Research Group
Wolf wrote the book with his colleagues in the Personal Science Research Group: Thomas Blomseth Christiansen, Martijn de Groot, Steven Jonas, Jakob Eg Larsen, and Sara Riggare.
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