Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks to NetGalley and Publisher for e-arc in exchange for honest review

What are the chances is an intriguing book about the nature of luck, how we perceive it to work and why we believe in it. While interesting, the book is a bit dry in places.
I was granted an e-arc, but I listened to the audiobook which was horrendous. The style was extremely artificial and robotic. It was a very bad choice, but personally, I think it’s better than nothing at all.
What are the Chances is not a pointless book, but it does lack focus. The overarching theme may be luck, but it didn’t feel like Blatchley had an overarching message to communicate. There are random facts about luck that she is happy to share, but many of those thoughts can go into pretty large tangents.
The structure was like a text book. Topic 1. Topic 2. So on and So forth. Where she had a series of topics to discuss rather than an overarching story. That really undercut the effectiveness of the book.
The book also seems unsure of it’s a fan of luck or a critique of it. If there is one pervasive theme throughout the book, it’s that luck is ill defined and basically completely made up.

Although, Blatchley seems to really fixate on the psychological feedback loop that “lucky” people create. You feel lucky, thereby finding ways to see your life through a lucky lens, and then you feel more confident and willingness to pursue new challenges. No one is actually luckier than anyone else, but those that feel unlucky tend to create a self-fulfilling prophecy in places. In my opinion, we should be able to recognize the positive traits that come from believing in luck, and use them to just do better (i.e. like being driven and persistent). Blatchley leaves us with a message that maybe believing in luck is a good thing however which is odd given the comparisons she herself makes between it and religion (fun fact: people who wish someone well/positive thoughts/good luck tend to actually believe they are partly responsible when good things happen. You might as well believe in ghosts imo).

Big picture, the book didn’t fail to intrigue me, the audiobook narrator should consider a different profession, and the book is a bit dry. 3-3.5/5

Check out my March 2022 Wrap Up on my YouTube Channel (Josh's Bookish Voyage) for my video review.

A fascinating look at the psychology and neuroscience behind luck and chance. Author Barbara Blatchley discusses the cultural and religious views of luck, human perception of randomness, The book is divided into topical chapters, is witty, and easy to read for both students of psychology or the lay person. Overall, a very interesting read. I will be checking out her other books.

I am buying this book!
The author brilliantly combines theory with science in a very readable way to explain fate, destiny, chance, luck and the human brain's desire to create order out of chaos.
The extensive research starts practically at the begining of mankind, from prehistoric paintings and spiritualism, to organized religion and the gaming industry. The book gives interesting real life examples of good luck / bad luck.
Also included are studies on how perception affects the outcome of events for individuals and how brains with Attention Deficit Disorder process things in a different way.
The information sometimes gets a little technical, but remains an interesting read. I plan to buy a hard back copy so I can refer to it more easily and purchase other copies to give as gifts.

This was an interesting reading about luck and the author brought in all the necessary data to show what luck is and how people got the concept of luck. It was a slow reading, but still enjoyable.

⭐⭐⭐

So this was an interesting book. The author has a very readable voice that kept me interested throughout. Often difficult to do with a book such as this. I especially enjoyed the historical religious beliefs, the majic tricks, and the luck deities throughout history. That said, sometimes the narrative ventured a little into the "dry" side of things. Still, definitly worth a read.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

3/5. A great premise with a lot of interesting moments, but I felt like it was missing the overarching narrative thread that holds pop sci books together. It ended up feeling a bit more encyclopedic, with lots of interesting but rather disjointed sections. For instance, while I enjoyed the exploration of luck deities across many different cultures, it seemed tangential; I thought that if the point was to explain people’s belief in luck it could probably have been summed up in fewer examples and remained just as effective. If you go into it looking for a collection of individually well-written articles about many different facets of luck you’ll probably enjoy it more. I’d particularly recommend chapters 3 and 4, “Luck and Psychology: On Being a Social Animal” and “Luck and Psychology: Magical Thinking.” As it was, I couldn’t help but wish for more cohesion.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES

The singular joy of reading through psychologist and neuroscientist Barbara Blatchley’s book What are the Chances? Why We Believe in Luck is to bear witness to an academician grok out on the subject of luck.

“Luck” is a tricky subject, yet there’s a long established intellectual history to make sense of it. “To the scientists who study it,” Blatchley explains, “luck is a category of causation used to explain success or failure when the outcome doesn’t seem to be the result of our own abilities or effort.” And it is this element of things happening “outside the limits of our control” that readily captures the imagination.

“Belief in curses, lucky shoes, lucky test-taking pens, and the power of prayer is illogical, irrational, and as unscientific as all get out,” Blatchley observes. “It is also a persistent characteristic of human beings.” This being the case, surely it stands to reason that this human trait (or foible) is worthy of study. What is luck? Can something be both good luck and bad luck at the same time? Does belief in luck affect our personalities or vice versa? These are just some of the questions that Blatchley considers in What Are the Chances?—and it is glorious.

The book has a number of wonderful insights, to wit: that luck is often conflated with randomness; that every culture from the Paleolithic times to the present has created mythologies to explain luck; and that the personal belief in luck is associated with specific dispositions of character and or ability in individuals, among others. It’s arguably equally interesting to learn about various experiments, conducted on both animals and humans, designed to help us better understand luck.

But will such learnings allow anyone to, well, bend luck to their favor? That is doubtful, though no one can be begrudged for trying. At best, whatever can be gleaned from What Are the Chances? will serve to help even the most stubborn of minds be more inclined toward intellectual humility in order to accept that, well, there really are just some things that are just beyond our control. As Blatchley puts it,

“Being lucky means being willing to ride the rolling waves of randomness that we encounter. Being lucky means being in the right place at the right time, but it also requires us to improve our skills, our talents, and our ability to think to make the most of what we’re able to do. We cannot rely solely on random chance to see us through. We must [apply] our minds to achieve our goals and be ready to accept, act on, and even embrace random chance when it happens. Reliance on luck becomes a problem when skill, ability, training, effort, and work are abandoned in favor of depending on the roll of the dice or the turn of a card.”

Truly, there ain’t nothing like bearing witness to an academician using her intellectual firepower to grok out on the subject of luck.

I liked this book. I enjoyed the personal insights and good sense of humor of the author. There is a lot of history which I found fascinating. I also liked the conversational tone of the book and its broad scope, which included science, psychology, sociology, and religion; broader indeed than I had expected. The science is explained well and this book well-qualifies as popular science. However, the pacing is uneven and becomes tedious at times when discussing individual experiments. Overall, though, the book is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Columbia University Press for the advance reader copy.

How lucky are you? Do you reflect on the luck of landing roles or being in the right place at the right time? In science, luck is used to explain “success or failure when the outcome doesn’t seem to be the result of our own abilities or efforts”.

I’m fascinated with luck and this new book by Barbara Blatchley, Prof. Psychology & Neuroscience Agnes Scott College is chock full of stories of luck and even the science of HOW to get lucky. Lucky events are random and random equals unpredictable but it is human nature to see patterns in things. Blatchley tells us “being lucky means being willing to ride the rolling waves of randomness.” We cannot rely on chance to see us through, but we can embrace it when it happens.

This book by Barbara Blatchley, a professor of psychology and neurology, discusses the ideas of luck, chance, and randomness; and how are human brains have evolved to understand them. The book has eight chapters with just under 200 pages.

The book starts off with the harrowing story of two women rowing a boat across the Atlantic ocean. Their boat was hit by a rogue wave and capsized, and they went through a difficult ordeal trying to stay alive as they waited for rescue. After being rescued, they both commented about how they were unlucky that they were hit by the wave, but lucky that a ship passed close enough to rescue them. Blatchley then discusses the definitions of “luck” and “randomness”, and gives examples of how humans tend to make errors in assessing randomness. She describes both false positive and false negative types of errors, and theorizes on why these tendencies evolved. Blatchley also identifies different types of luck as proposed by James Austin, and discusses each type.

Chapter two looks at several historical examples of lucky people, such as multiple lottery winners. The concepts of fate, destiny, and religion are discussed; and Blatchley describes how these concepts played out in many different ancient civilizations. Chapter three goes into social psychology, attribution theory, counterfactuals, and how we think about the actions of other people. Chapter four discusses curses, lucky charms, and other magical thinking; as well as belief in good luck being associated with lower depression and anxiety scores. Chapter five details the history of the invention of the EEG, the structure of the brain, and an analysis of risky behaviors. Chapter six goes into ERPs, fMRIs and mirror neurons. Clever Hans the tapping horse is introduced in chapter seven, as an example of expectations affecting an experiment. Dysexecutive syndrome is also explored. Chapter eight discusses the psychological and evolutionary benefits of assigning luck to random events.

Overall this was an interesting book that was fun and easy to read. I didn't really learn as much as I had hoped, as the author doesn't go very deep into the neuroscience aspects, but there are still some great points and intriguing ideas. I wasn't familiar with many of the stories of extreme good or bad luck, and those were fun to read, even though they were often not really vital to the discussion. I would recommend this book to anyone even remotely interested in the subject matter.

An engaging and well-structured read!

A lot of insight on our perception of luck and what luck really is or seems to be. I think it's possible to come out of this book with different conclusions on what luck personally is to you and how to wield it, and, all in all, it's fairly perspective-widening.

The chapters on the neuroscience of luck, or more so perceived luck and its effect on us, contained more detail than expected and enrichened the book. They're probably my favourite part along with the brief passages exploring luck and its manifestations in different cultures & religions.

The book also contained lots of fun examples of unbelievable occurrences of both good and bad luck, and just generally occurrences which really make you go 'what are the chances!!'

A nice easy read on the psychology of chance and luck.

The author, a psychology professor, explains chance and luck. Lots of nice stories about “lucky” people. It was good to see various psychological sub-disciplines being explained (in a lot of detail) and then applied to chance and luck. Broadly, these were:

- statistics and probability theory
- social psychology
- cognitive psychology
- biopsychology and neuroscience

Having said that, it wasn’t the most exciting of books. I wasn’t eagerly waking up every morning excited to read a chapter. Definitely worth a read but don’t expect it to rock your world!

It is a wonderful little read about luck. We say this word everyday, but we don't know how it works.
This book takes a deep and scientific take on the luck. It has wonderful stories. Four girls surviving in sea for weeks. A man surviving seven life threatening accidents. A lady winning multiple lotteries. A detailed explanation about brain and new research about luck.
It is a very good and insightful book about eternal human belief in something known as luck.

The Chances Are Good That This Is A Solid Book. Blatchley does an excellent job of looking at the various reasons why we believe in luck, from the societal to the social to the psychological and even the biological. And she does it with enough precision to do justice to the mathematics involved, but with enough generality to be enjoyable to a non-mathematics-oriented public. Overall an excellent "popular science" level look at the subject at hand, and very much recommended.