Life: The Odds: And How to Improve Them

by Gregory Baer

A humorous reference identifies the average person's chances of such events as catching a baseball at a major league game, being canonized as a saint, picking a winning stock, marrying a millionaire, and more. 25,000 first printing.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Dhen Dhen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever, witty, and insightful.

I won't say I read through all of it. I skipped a lot of the entries. There are topics that stimulate curiousity, but agonizing ones are present as well. Nonetheless, nothing will be lost if you won't read some of them (except for a few LOLs. The author has a great sense of humor.)

This is the type of book you can put down in a while. You can read it every now and then.

[Simeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enlightening. This book is about odds. They give odds about everyday problems, such as what are the odds that you will marry a rich person, or climb mount Everest etc. The things I liked about it was that it had good logic and it was interesting.

[Steve Willey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just OK. There were a few really interesting chapters... As the book progressed the details diminished. The most comprehensive chapters were those on gambling.

[Camilla]

Life: It’s odds gives the statistical probability of endless life situations. Most of us have always wondered the chances of dating a supermodel, win an academy award, or write a bestseller. This book directly talks about your odds, and how to improve these odds. You can find out the answers to these questions in this book. The book was constantly bombarded with graphs, pictures, and tables to understand and discern the data and probability of these odds.

Personally, I found this book quite boring at times. The sections I was not interested about, never captured my attention and found it more of a research information book than a non-fiction book. The information was very interesting, and explained in depth the probability of certain odds. Charts and graphs helped show the probability. It helped me understand the certain odds and how to improve them. I found this non-fiction book more of a adult-oriented book and never understood the humor inside the text.

[Mza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lessons: Always sit in the back of the train. If you want it to sell, don't name your book Canada, Friendly Giant to the North. Eat enough fiber. In Las Vegas, choose blackjack over any other game. Certainly, never play keno. If you are thinking about starting a small business, keep in mind that only 40 percent of bookstores operate with net income. Compare this to businesses engaging in "Water transport -- contract pilots", 98% of which are profitable. If you murder somebody, don't just hang out at or near the scene of the crime.

"The objects most likely to do major damage are asteroids of one hundred meters or greater in diameter. The odds of an object this size hitting the earth over the next one hundred years are about 5 to 1."

[Katy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this up on a whim when I had a gift certificate and read it in the mid '00s. I had hoped it would be funny and full of amusing anecdotes, but instead it was dry, dry, dry, and not at all funny. I did manage to finish it, but threw it across the room anyway. Yuck.

[Knox · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this from a friend. A surprisingly clever and interesting look at probability and how to interpret your real life odds in many facets of life, also gives the reader a sense of not being a victim to statistics.

[Linas Jakucionis]

Awesome

[Notdorothy]

Life: The Odds: And How to Improve Them by Gregory Baer (2003)

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mildly interesting.

Computes the odds of many things happening. And gives you some tips on how to improve your odds. He thinks he's pretty funny.

[Maria Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute, with some interesting factoids. Re-readability is low, but it was still worth a chuckle.

[Don Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are quite a few interesting tidbits of information in this book, but it's more or less a "For Fun" book like the Worst Case Survival book was.