The Norm Chronicles

Author: David Spiegelhalter
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847658296
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

Book Description
Meet Norm. He's 31, 5'9", just over 13 stone, and works a 39 hour week. He likes a drink, doesn't do enough exercise and occasionally treats himself to a bar of chocolate (milk). He's a pretty average kind of guy. In fact, he is the average guy in this clever and unusual take on statistical risk, chance, and how these two factors affect our everyday choices. Watch as Norm (who, like all average specimens, feels himself to be uniquely special), and his friends careful Prudence and reckless Kelvin, turns to statistics to help him in life's endless series of choices - should I fly or take the train? Have a baby? Another drink? Or another sausage? Do a charity skydive or get a lift on a motorbike? Because chance and risk aren't just about numbers - it's about what we believe, who we trust and how we feel about the world around us. From a world expert in risk and the bestselling author of The Tiger That Isn't (and creator of BBC Radio 4's More or Less), this is a commonsense (and wildly entertaining) guide to personal risk and decoding the statistics that represent it.

Love, Norm

Author: Norman M. Shulman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781682831243
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
An epistolary memoir ruminating on Jewish identity, heroism, history, and inspiration.

Young Men and Fire

Author: Norman MacLean
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022645049X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Book Description
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner: “The terrifying story of the worst disaster in the history of the US Forest Service’s elite Smokejumpers.” —Kirkus Reviews A devastating and lyrical work of nonfiction, Young Men and Fire describes the events of August 5, 1949, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in this extraordinary book. Alongside Maclean’s now-canonical A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, Young Men and Fire is recognized today as a classic of the American West. This edition of Maclean’s later triumph—the last book he would write—includes a powerful new foreword by Timothy Egan, author of The Big Burn and The Worst Hard Time. As moving and profound as when it was first published, Young Men and Fire honors the literary legacy of a man who gave voice to an essential corner of the American soul. “A moving account of humanity, nature, and the perseverance of the human spirit.” —Library Journal “Haunting.” —The Wall Street Journal “Engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly

The Tiger That Isn't

Author: Andrew Dilnot
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847650791
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Book Description
Mathematics scares and depresses most of us, but politicians, journalists and everyone in power use numbers all the time to bamboozle us. Most maths is really simple - as easy as 2+2 in fact. Better still it can be understood without any jargon, any formulas - and in fact not even many numbers. Most of it is commonsense, and by using a few really simple principles one can quickly see when maths, statistics and numbers are being abused to play tricks - or create policies - which can waste millions of pounds. It is liberating to understand when numbers are telling the truth or being used to lie, whether it is health scares, the costs of government policies, the supposed risks of certain activities or the real burden of taxes.

The Last Palace

Author: Norman Eisen
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0451495799
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
A sweeping yet intimate narrative about the last hundred years of turbulent European history, as seen through one of Mitteleuropa’s greatest houses—and the lives of its occupants When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s, and The Last Palace chronicles the upheavals that transformed the continent over the past century. There was the optimistic Jewish financial baron, Otto Petschek, who built the palace after World War I as a statement of his faith in democracy, only to have that faith shattered; Rudolf Toussaint, the cultured, compromised German general who occupied the palace during World War II, ultimately putting his life at risk to save the house and Prague itself from destruction; Laurence Steinhardt, the first postwar US ambassador whose quixotic struggle to keep the palace out of Communist hands was paired with his pitched efforts to rescue the country from Soviet domination; and Shirley Temple Black, an eyewitness to the crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring by Soviet tanks, who determined to return to Prague and help end totalitarianism—and did just that as US ambassador in 1989. Weaving in the life of Eisen’s own mother to demonstrate how those without power and privilege moved through history, The Last Palace tells the dramatic and surprisingly cyclical tale of the triumph of liberal democracy.

The Hidden Half

Author: Michael Blastland
Publisher: Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1786496380
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275

Book Description
Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is 'The Hidden Half' - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world. We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think. Filled with compelling stories from economics, genetics, business, and science, The Hidden Half is a warning that an explanation which works in one arena may not work in another. Entertaining and provocative, it will change how you view the world.

The Tenth Girl

Author: Sara Faring
Publisher: Imprint
ISBN: 1250304512
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 464

Book Description
A haunted Argentinian mansion. A family curse. A twist you'll never see coming. Welcome to Vaccaro School. Simmering in Patagonian myth, The Tenth Girl is a gothic psychological thriller with a haunting twist. At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls. Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored... and one of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi’s existence. An Imprint Book "Layered and challenging, and full to bursting with intelligence, while at the same time exuberantly bizarre, like it’s having the best time on its own and daring you to join in." —Rory Power, New York Times–bestselling author of Wilder Girls "This book envelops the reader with sweeping beauty and tingling mystery from the very first page." —Nova Ren Suma, New York Times-bestselling author of The Walls Around Us

Kell's Legend

Author: Andy Remic
Publisher: Watkins Media Limited
ISBN: 0857660179
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
Ferocious fantasy from a real-life hardman come to claim the post-Gemmell world. THEY CAME FROM THE NORTH AND THE CITY FELL. It is a time for warriors, a time for heroes. Kell's axe howls out for blood. The land of Falanor has been invaded by an albino army, the Army of Iron. A small group set off to warn the king: Kell, a magnificent and brutal hero; his granddaughter, Nienna and her friend, Katrina; and Saark, the ex-Sword Champion of King Leanoric, disgraced after his affair with the Queen. Fighting their way south, betrayal follows battle, battle follows deviation, and they are attacked from all quarters by deadly warriors, monstrous harvesters who drain blood from their victims to feed their masters. As Falanor comes under heavy attack and invasion, only then does Nienna begin to learn the truth about grandfather Kell -- that he is anything but a hero. Ferocious fantasy from a real-life hardman come to claim the post-Gemmell world. File Under: Epic Fantasy [ A City Besieged | A Dangerous Hero | Bloodsucking Hordes | Sweeping Battles ] E-book ISBN: 978-0-85766-017-6

The Temptations of Pleasure Island

Author: Gilbert Morris
Publisher: Moody Publishers
ISBN: 1575677873
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Book Description
The Seven Sleepers get to take a much-needed vacation. Traveling to a place called Pleasure Island they find a virtual paradise where games and parties are constantly happening. Gambling is the norm and if some unlucky person loses everything they have, they are forced to work as slaves in the mines. Watch Josh and Sarah and your other Sleeper friends figure out the best way to handle situations involving behavior they know is wrong.

Mastering Money: How to Beat Debt, Build Wealth, and Be Prepared for any Financial Crisis

Author: Norm Champ
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 1260452549
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
Overcome debt, make smart money decisions, and build a financially secure future Do you support your family, pay your taxes, get the bills done on time—and yet still struggle to achieve financial security? If so, you’re not alone. About one-third of all Americans have not saved for retirement, another third have no savings at all, and more than half have no budget. How did we get here? Two words: financial illiteracy. As money and finance have become more complex over the decades, the average American has not been able to keep up—in essence, leaving our personal financial decisions up to banks, bureaucrats, policymakers, and even fraudsters. Norm Champ, a former director at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), provides an in-depth primer on how money works, designed just for you—the non-finance reader. Champ shows how to: • Pay off your loans and stay out of debt for the long run • Build savings that will see you through thick and thin • Avoid financial disaster—from bad credit deals to outright scams • Start building a safe, smart investing portfolio Our financial system is easier to grasp than you think—and armed with this new knowledge and insight, you’ll finally take control of your financial future. When you know how money works, you make better financial decisions. It’s that simple. Mastering Money demystifies finance and provides plainspoken, straightforward advice for building a solid financial foundation you can count on in good times and bad.