Advantages: Invaluable help Disadvantages: Books rather flimsy
'The Postillion Has Been StruckByLightning'.
This phrase has entered the language as a verbal eccentricity, the rather odd opening entry in one of the first published foreign language phrasebooks in Regency times. Perhaps it?s not as ludicrous as at first it seems. Consider, if you were doing the Grand Tour in 1800, rattling through some little Alpine mountain village, and a dreadful storm broke out, you might well want to tell the indigenous populace if a bolt from above had finished off your coachman.
I have a wonderful collection of phrase books. My favourite has to be a French one from the 1920s, which contains such memorable phrases as:
Do not starch my cummerbund.
This wine cooler has grit in it. Bring me another.
Polish my dancing pumps.
(Note the autocratic omission of ?please?).
Another great one is an Italian phrase ...
Advantages: Surprisingly entertaining read Disadvantages: You might get called a geek!!!
If I said that I recommended you read a book on statistics you would probably think I had lost the plot.
But that is what I am going to do - I am going to recommend StruckbyLightning: The Curious World of Probabilities by Jeffrey S. Rosenthal.
I actually picked this book up at a Church fete for 10p (now what are the odds on that !!) as my 13 year old son loves books like this.
The book is about probabilities and randomness as it occurs in everyday life It doesn't only inform but it also entertains readers without the need for a mathematical brain.
The book is 264 pages long and covers details like
· Coincidences -- surprising or not?
· Casino games: roulette, keno, craps
· Card games: bridge, poker, blackjack
· Crime rates and trends
· Decision making and utility functions
· Interpreting medical ...
Advantages: A crackin' read, full of plot twists and characters you'll love to hate Disadvantages: None!
The storm on the night of Laura Shane's birth is so dramatic that people talked about it for years... (or so the story goes). The other odd thing about that night is the appearance of a mysterious stranger. This man pops up at various points in Laura's life, and she comes to think of him as her special "guardian" who can always be relied upon to help her out. But who is he, and where does he come from? And why is his appearance always accompanied by lighning?? Nope, I can't tell you, it'll spoil it!
"Lightning" follows the events of Laura's life, which seems to have more than it's fair share of tragedy, starting with the death of Laura's mother during her birth. Fortunately the author doesn't allow her to become a maudlin, woe-is-me character (otherwise it'd be a very boring book), and she deals with her life's dramatic ...
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