Pedro DC C

We all know that the future is inherently unknowable, and yet we behave and plan as though it is. Once we truly understand the nature of uncertainty, though, we can take practical steps to make the most of the opportunities that come our way. In Mastering Uncertainty, award-winning author Matt Watkinson and investor and entrepreneur Csaba Konkoly offer a masterclass on the workings of luck and probability. They show how to calculate when to make big bets and when to pull back.

As Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase once cynically observed, "If you torture data long enough, it will confess." Lying with statistics is a time-honored con. In Standard Deviations, economics professor Gary Smith walks us through the various tricks and traps that people use to back up their own crackpot theories. Sometimes, the unscrupulous deliberately try to mislead us. Other times, the well-intentioned are blissfully unaware of the mischief they are committing.

Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful - yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies.

Meditation makes you more productive because it lets you earn back time. For each minute you spend meditating, you'll earn around nine minutes back, as Chris Bailey - author of The Productivity Project and Hyperfocus - will show in this candid and counter-intuitive guide to the productivity benefits of meditation.

Medicine, education, psychology, health, parenting - wherever it really matters, we look to science for advice. Science Fictions reveals the disturbing flaws that undermine our understanding of all of these fields and more.