New Delhi, Sept. 6 -- About a month after the outbreak of the war in West Asia, Google searches surged for "LPG prices" and "induction cooktops", shifting away from "flight cancellations" and "Middle East airspace". People's online search behaviour could be read as a snapshot of what they were feeling and indicated how the war miles away had entered the country's kitchens.

In What We Ask Google: A Surprisingly Hopeful History of Humankind, Google's data editor Simon Rogers delves into billions of queries to capture a shared arc in real-time human intent and how it has evolved since 2004. However, the author's uni-dimensional focus on statistical summaries, narrated through a warm lens, settles into snackable trivia rather than an engagin...