‘A joy’ Philippe Sands ‘Glorious’ David SpiegelhalterA fascinating, enchanting and personal look at the meaning of luck, and the way in which it has shaped our shared history and continues to inflect our day to day lives.What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there actually such a thing as ‘luck’—some force that intervenes between desire and its consummation, that impedes or hastens it?

‘A joy’ Philippe Sands ‘Glorious’ David SpiegelhalterA fascinating, enchanting and personal look at the meaning of luck, and the way in which it has shaped our shared history and continues to inflect our day to day lives.What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there actually such a thing as ‘luck’—some force that intervenes between desire and its consummation, that impedes or hastens it?

We live with the idea of sin every day – from the greatest transgressions to the tiniest misdemeanours. But surely the concept was invented for an age where divine retribution and eternal punishment dominated the collective consciousness?In this lively collection of new writing, Nicola Barker, Dylan Evans, David Flusfeder, Todd McEwen, Martin Rowson, John Sutherland and Ali Smith go head to head with the capital vices to explore what we really mean when we talk about sin. The resul...

The discovery and deciphering of Europe's earliest known written language is recounted with "almost nail-biting suspense" in this prize-winning account ( Booklist, starred review).In 1900, famed archaeologist Arthur Evans uncovered the ruins of Knossos, a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece's Classical Age. The massive discovery included a cache of ancient tablets, Europe's earliest written records. For hal...

In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean and the center of the world.In Empires of the Sea,acclaimed historian Roger Crowley has written his most mesmerizing work to date–a thrilling account of this brutal decades-long battle betw...

An enthralling and delightful introduction to the strange world of quantum theory, an essential element in understanding modern society“A gripping account of the history of quantum mechanics and a clear description of its significance—and weirdness. Absolutely fascinating.”—Isaac AsimovThe question this book addresses is “What is reality?” The answer(s) may surprise you; you may not believe them. But you will find out how contemporary s...

An ambitious work that traces the stories and fates of women in Medieval Europe over the course of a millennium. "A wealth of solid information." — The New York TimesMedieval history is often written as a series of battles and territorial shifts. But the essential contributions of women during this period have been too often relegated to the dustbin of history. In Women in the Middle Ages, Frances and Joseph Gies reclaim this lost history, in a liv...

"Remarkable….Ekirch has emptied night's pockets, and laid the contents out before us."—Arthur Krystal, The New YorkerBringing light to the shadows of history through a "rich weave of citation and archival evidence" (Publishers Weekly), scholar A. Roger Ekirch illuminates the aspects of life most often overlooked by other historians—those that unfold at night. In this "triumph of social history" (Mail on Sunday), Ekirch's "enthralling anthropology" (Ha...

"A delightful exposition of commonly-encountered statistical fallacies and paradoxes and why they matter." —Samuel H. Preston, coauthor of Demography: Measuring and Modeling Population ProcessesAn essential guide to the ways data can improve decision making.Statistics are everywhere: in news reports, at the doctor's office, and in every sort of forecast, from the stock market to the weather. Allen B. Downey knows well that people have an innate abil...

A resource of information about the cultural, political and social conditions of urban life in the capital of medieval England during the 1300s.For the medieval period that was witness to a legion of political and natural disasters, the rise and fall of empires across the globe and one of the most devastating and greatest pandemics human kind has ever experienced, the fourteenth century was transformative.Peering through the looking-glass to focus on one of E...

" With poignancy and audacity, Frame builds an unexpected bridge between mathematical beauty and human sorrow, illuminating both." —Francis Su, author of Mathematics for Human FlourishingWe all know the euphoria of intellectual epiphany—the thrill of sudden understanding. But coupled with that excitement is a sense of loss: a moment of epiphany can never be repeated. In Geometry of Grief *,*mathematician Michael Frame draws on a career's worth of ...