We live in a world where uncertainty is inevitable. How should we deal with what we don’t know? And what role do chance, luck and coincidence play in our lives?

David Spiegelhalter has spent his career dissecting data in order to understand risks and assess the chances of what might happen in the future. In The Art of Uncertainty, he gives readers a window onto how we can all do this better.

In engaging, crystal-clear prose, he takes us through the principles of probability, showing how it can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to pandemics and climate change forecasts, and explores how we can update our beliefs about the future in the face of constantly changing experience. Along the way, he explains why roughly 40% of football results come down to luck rather than talent, how the National Risk Register assesses near-term risks to the United Kingdom, and why we can be so confident that two properly shuffled packs of cards have never, ever been in the exact same order.

Drawing on a wide range of captivating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty while also having the humility to admit what we do not know

Georgina Sturge, House of Commons Library statistician and author of the critically acclaimed Bad Data, explores the rich history of the times the UK has counted itself – from the revolutionary first census of 1801 to modern worries over technological surveillance.

Condensing a whole society into numbers brought hidden problems to light: mapping cholera deaths in Soho led researchers to a single deadly water pump; Florence Nightingale stunned the Victorian establishment with her diagrams showing disease was the soldier’s hidden enemy; and the discovery that industries like firework-making were almost entirely staffed by women helped improve workers’ rights.

The census also reveals the people left out of the nation’s story. Records reveal the remarkable presence of escaped American slaves living in nineteenth century Leeds, and that by 1901 there were 600 professional Italian cooks in the UK. More recent data has acknowledged religion, ethnicity, and LGBT identity for the first time. Sturge also tracks those who have resisted the state’s attempts at tabulation – people burning survey forms, stripping naked in protest and, in the case of 500 Suffragettes, avoiding the 1911 census by skating all night round Aldwych roller rink.

Full of fascinating social detail, Sum of Us draws out the human stories captured in the vast tangle of data the UK has collected over two centuries. It provides a vital snapshot not of who we imagine ourselves to be – but who we really are.

Cult leaders, murderers, psychopaths – and you. Take a deep dive into the bizarre psychology of secrecy with Andrew Gold, award-winning investigative journalist and host of Heretics.

We all keep secrets. 97 per cent of us are hiding a secret right now, and on average we each hold thirteen at any one time. There’s a one-in-two chance that those secrets involve a breach of trust, a lie or a financial impropriety. They are the stuff of gossip, of novels and of classic dramas; secrets form a major part of our hidden inner lives.

Andrew Gold knows this better than anyone. As a public figure, he has found himself the unwitting recipient of hundreds of strangers’ most private revelations. This set him on a journey to understand this critical part of our societies and lives. Why do we keep secrets? Why are we fascinated by those of others? What happens to our mind when we confess?

Drawing from psychology, history, social science, philosophy and personal interviews, The Psychology of Secrets is a rollicking journey through the history of secrecy.

‘Andrew Gold is – but should not be – one of our culture’s best kept secrets. He is a truly edgy journalist, broadcaster and writer’ – David Baddiel, bestselling author of The God Desire

In surprising stories that take us into the worlds of hitmen, insurance frauds and modern-day slaves, Jenny Kleeman explores the value of human life.

We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. For philanthropists, judges, criminals and healthcare providers, it’s just part of the job. In The Price of Life, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we’re worth.

In a series of extraordinary encounters – with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern-day slaves – she discovers more questions than answers. What happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Are some lives really worth more than others? In a world in love with data, what do we lose and what do we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic?
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‘Compelling’ – Literary Review
‘Reframes how you think about the world’ – Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn
‘Gripping’ – Daily Mail
‘Writing, thinking and storytelling at its best’ – Ben Judah, author of This Is Europe

We live in a world where uncertainty is inevitable. How should we deal with what we don’t know? And what role do chance, luck and coincidence play in our lives?

David Spiegelhalter has spent his career dissecting data in order to understand risks and assess the chances of what might happen in the future. In The Art of Uncertainty, he gives readers a window onto how we can all do this better.

In engaging, crystal-clear prose, he takes us through the principles of probability, showing how it can help us think more analytically about everything from medical advice to pandemics and climate change forecasts, and explores how we can update our beliefs about the future in the face of constantly changing experience. Along the way, he explains why roughly 40% of football results come down to luck rather than talent, how the National Risk Register assesses near-term risks to the United Kingdom, and why we can be so confident that two properly shuffled packs of cards have never, ever been in the exact same order.

Drawing on a wide range of captivating real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty while also having the humility to admit what we do not know

‘A book that will force Left and Right alike to reconsider old assumptions . . . an important book’ The Telegraph

‘A careful, balanced, and convincing take . . . challenges much of what we think is obvious about migration’ Ian Morris, author of Why The West Rules – For Now

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Authoritative and myth-busting, this is the one book you need to read to understand why we’ve been wrong about migration – perfect for fans of Tim Marshall’s Prisoners of Geography

Global migration is not at an all-time high.

Climate change will not lead to mass migration.

Immigration mainly benefits the wealthy, not workers.

Border restrictions have paradoxically produced more migration.

These statements might sound counter-intuitive or just outright wrong – but the facts behind the headlines reveal a completely different story to the ones we’re told about migration. In this ground-breaking and revelatory book, based on more than three decades of research, leading expert Professor Hein de Haas explodes myths from left to right that politicians, interest groups and media regularly spread about migration.

Above all, How Migration Really Works offers a new vision of global migration based on facts rather than fears, and a paradigm-altering understanding of this perennially important subject.

Cult leaders, murderers, psychopaths – and you. Take a deep dive into the bizarre psychology of secrecy with Andrew Gold, award-winning investigative journalist and host of Heretics.

We all keep secrets. 97 per cent of us are hiding a secret right now, and on average we each hold thirteen at any one time. There’s a one-in-two chance that those secrets involve a breach of trust, a lie or a financial impropriety. They are the stuff of gossip, of novels and of classic dramas; secrets form a major part of our hidden inner lives.

Andrew Gold knows this better than anyone. As a public figure, he has found himself the unwitting recipient of hundreds of strangers’ most private revelations. This set him on a journey to understand this critical part of our societies and lives. Why do we keep secrets? Why are we fascinated by those of others? What happens to our mind when we confess?

Drawing from psychology, history, social science, philosophy and personal interviews, The Psychology of Secrets is a rollicking journey through the history of secrecy.

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‘Andrew Gold is – but should not be – one of our culture’s best kept secrets. He is a truly edgy journalist, broadcaster and writer‘ – David Baddiel, bestselling author of The God Desire

We say that life is priceless but in these surprising stories that explore the value of human life, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we’re worth.

The cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it’s just part of the job.

In a series of extraordinary encounters – with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern day slaves – Kleeman discovers more questions than answers. What does it mean for our humanity when we crunch the numbers to decide who gets the expensive life-saving drugs, and who misses out? What do we learn about ourselves when philanthropic giving by the effective altruists in Silicon Valley is received by some, while others are left to suffer? Are some lives really worth more than others? And what happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Does it make for a fairer decision-making process – or for moral bankruptcy?

Exploring the final frontier in monetization, Kleeman asks what we lose and what we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic.
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‘Compelling’ – Literary Review
‘Reframes how you think about the world’ – Sophie Elmhirst, author of Maurice and Maralyn
‘Gripping’ – Daily Mail
‘Writing, thinking and storytelling at its best’ – Ben Judah, author of This Is Europe

A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Game of Thrones-style intra-elite conflict meets big data’ TLS

‘Extraordinary. . . the culmination of many years of highly original and innovative work’ Bloomberg

One of the most iconoclastic thinkers of our time offers a brilliant new theory of how society works

What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power?

For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no-one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

The lessons, he argues, are clear. When the balance of power between the ruling class and the majority tips too far in favour of elites, income inequality surges. The rich get richer, the poor further impoverished. As more people try to join the elite, frustration with the establishment brims over, often with disastrous consequences. Elite overproduction led to state breakdown in imperial China, in medieval France, in the American Civil War – and it is happening now.

But while we are far along the path toward violent political rupture, Turchin’s models also light the way to a brighter future. Drawing insight from those occasions in history where the balance was restored, End Times also points towards a different future: an escape from the patterns of the past.

BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: THE GUARDIAN * THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES