This is a book about statistics and probability. While the author tries very hard to keep it light and accessible, inevitably there's a fair amount of arithmetic thrown around in each chapter.

I mention this because you're likely to find your head spinning a few times as you try to get your brain wrapped around the points being made. It doesn't help of course that we are wired (as Mlodinow repeatedly illustrates)in such a way that we reject randomness in favor of structure, even if that structure is entirely fictitious.

Along the way Mlodinow happily demolishes the "superstar" CEO, expert Wall Street stock pickers and the notion that Hollywood executives actually have the ability to pick blockbuster movies. All of these, it turns out, owe far more to randomness than anything else.

And yet, while knowing all that, and being able to replicate at least some of the math, it's still hard to shake the feeling that my gut instinct is better than the numbers. Humans are funny creatures.

Our decisions are rarely based on facts and almost entirely on observation and guess work. Mlodinow in one aside notes that there was a noticeable increase in deaths as a result of car accidents after 9/11 as people stopped using planes. They would of course have been far safer in the air. But that's not what their instincts told them.

I'd say this book was required reading, because I guarantee you are guilty of at least some of the behavior that Mlodinow describes in the book. And it's probably not doing you any favors. If nothing else you may be able to improve the performance of your 401K...