Not for the first time, I picked up Of Dice & Men: The Story of Dungeons and Dragons and the People Who Play it by David Ewalt. I've been researching the history of role-playing games and found Ewalt's book a useful complement to Jon Peterson's 720 page brick,...
The headlines tell the story. “Thousands in Madrid to lock down”, “New Covid-19 rules for more parts of North and Midlands”, “Can a ‘circuit break’ halt the second Covid wave?”, “‘Voluntary lockdown’ plea to university’s students” and “Further Covid-19 measures...
The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt. A beautifully-illustrated guide to the miscellanea of our everyday surroundings. Roman and Kurt have produced a cornucopia of miniature essays on topics ranging from the slip-base (an elegant piece of design...
How far can common sense take us in the field of statistics? At first glance, not very. The discipline may be vital but it is also highly technical, and full of pitfalls and counterintuitions. Statistics can feel like numerical alchemy, incomprehensible to muggles —...
Annie Duke, How To Decide. A workbook that talks through all the essentials of decision theory & behavioural science - the outside view vs the inside view; analysis paralysis, pre-mortems, "resulting" - while offering exercises & and self-tests. This is a book...
I spoke this week "at" Oxford's Mathematical Institute; a great honour in the same week that one of Oxford's finest, Roger Penrose, won a Nobel prize. Enjoy! https://youtu.be/0ZxV1WhqE90?t=231 My NEW book How To Make The World Add Up is OUT NOW! Details, and to order...
The full review, by Stian Westlake, Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society, is available on FT.com and was published on 6 October 2020. Some excepts below: ...Covid-19 has also cranked up our latent data-phobia. Can we trust the statistics our governments...
Screwtape, CS Lewis’s unforgettable devil, has this advice for crushing people who are facing a test of endurance. “Feed him with false hopes . . . Exaggerate the weariness by making him think it will soon be over.” Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, we are starting...
A confession. I love Blackwell's, the vast and labyrinthine bookshop in the heart of Oxford. I've read stories to my children in the nooks and crannies there, given talks, watched some unforgettable plays, bought second-hand textbooks, and many other adventures over...