The Drunkard's Walk

How Randomness Rules Our Lives

By: Leonard Mlodinow

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

In this irreverent and illuminating audiobook, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, chance, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious causes, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance.

The rise and fall of your favorite movie star or the most reviled CEO - in fact, all our destinies - reflects chance as much as planning and innate abilities. Even Roger Maris, who beat Babe Ruth's single season home-run record, was in all likelihood not great but just lucky.

How could it have happened that a wine was given five out of five stars by one journal and called the worst wine of the decade by another? Wine ratings, school grades, political polls, and many other things in daily life are less reliable than we believe. By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives fresh insight into what is really meaningful and how we can make decisions based on a deeper truth. From the classroom to the courtroom, from financial markets to supermarkets, from the doctor's office to the Oval Office, Mlodinow's insights will intrigue, awe, and inspire.

Offering listeners not only a tour of randomness, chance and probability but also a new way of looking at the world, this original, unexpected journey reminds us that much in our lives is about as predictable as the steps of a stumbling man afresh from a night at a bar.

©2008 Leonard Mlodinow (P)2008 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"A wonderful guide to how the mathematical laws of randomness affect our lives." (Stephen Hawking)
"If you're strong enough to have some of your favorite assumptions challenged, please listen to The Drunkard's Walk....a history, explanation, and exaltation of probability theory....The results are mind-bending." ( Fortune)

Understanding Randomness is essential, and HARD

With "The Selfish Gene" and "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" in the seventies, up through this book and "The Invisible Gorilla" issued by audible, educated people are offered a chance to struggle with the counterintuitive randomness that rules us, and the brain wiring that cannot detect randomness without training. History is linear certainty. The future is only probability, and hence unknowable. Garth Brooks says to "...Thank God for Unanswered Prayers." I say to read/hear every book like this you can find in a struggle to grasp the nature of randomness, and our own inborn blindness to it.

Random thoughts on a good book

The Drunkards Walk takes a look at why our lives are ruled by more randomness than we would like to admit. Mlodinow's explanation of why hindsight is always 20/20 but trying to predict future events with flawed assumptions, faulty match, and missing variables is a very challenging endeavor. Kept reminding me of the Thomas Jefferson quote that "the harder I work the more luck I seem to have". When Mlondiow's talked about that even if things are more random than we like, the more at bats you get at it by taking risks and giving it a try the more opportunities you will make for your self. A very good listen even if it is a bit unsettling.

Eye opener

Where does The Drunkard's Walk rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This topic is a little far from my interests so it isn't quite in the same realm as other titles I have listened to thus far.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No.

Any additional comments?

I liked the perspective that I gained from this read, even though it was a little bit hard for me to get through.

Read this book, it's amazing

If you could sum up The Drunkard's Walk in three words, what would they be?

Life's statistics explained

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Drunkard's Walk?

I don't want to ruin any of it, it's just all so good.

Have you listened to any of Sean Pratt’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I'm not sure, but he does a great job with this narration.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Most of its contents moved me.

Any additional comments?

A great and engaging book that will leave you better off once you've finished it.

I was not the audience

This book was a good walk through the history of statistics and probability. However, as a statistician, lots of the mathematical explanations I was already familiar with. That being said the book gave me a framework for how to explain the randomness of life to others. Also, I really loved the last chapter and how it brought everything together.

Interested in statistics? This is the book.

You’re presented with three doors. Behind one door is a car and behind the other two doors are goats. Sound familiar? It is. You pick door number one. Instead of opening your choice, Monty opens door number two and reveals a goat. He then asks you if you wish to keep what’s behind your original choice (door one) or change your mind to door number three. If you think it makes no difference whether you switch or not and that your odds are 50/50 either way, you might be surprised at the answer and enjoy reading this book. If you are surprised by the answer to this ridiculously simple challenge, you’re in for a plethora of awakenings about the assumptions we make of the numbers and statistics we hear in our daily lives.

Peppered with charm and wit; wonderfully read by Sean Pratt, I would highly recommend this title to anyone interested in a history of the development of statistics. Books about numbers are especially not easy ones to listen to but Sean Pratt reads this one at just the right pace and with just the right inflections to make listening to and learning from The Drunkard’s Walk totally accessible. I will often read two or three books at a time. This one, however, was just so captivating, it monopolized my complete attention. But then I’m a nerd and that too might be a requirement for truly enjoying this title.

Great content, well read

I enjoyed this audiobook very much. The content was well researched, the length good and complexity about right. There were a few too many sports examples for me, but overall I think the author communicated a series of complex ideas very well. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of science and mathematics as well.

An engaging book, beautifully read by Lloyd James

Mlodinow is inspired; he finds stories, analogies, mysteries and histories that make the development of probability theory fascinating. I really enjoyed the book. The mathematics and the concepts were so easy to follow - building so solidly from step to step. I think I truly understand probability better now than I did after years of university statistics. Without (visible) effort Mlodinow has gifted me with understanding of the heart of probability - without that slightly panicked feeling of groping over it's slippery, mathematical surface. Seriously.

Lloyd James performance is fantastic. I love his voice, his pace, his modulation. Lloyd adds greatly to Mlodinow's intent to make this a joy and a conversation. (Loyd's voice niggled at me for ages, so certain was I that I had heard it before. Finally I twigged that he was the gent of the Russian accent performing Heinlein's "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress"! Another excellent job.)

Excellent introduction to statistics & probability

What did you love best about The Drunkard's Walk?

It was very interesting. As some other readers have pointed out he spends a lot of time covering the history of the development of modern statistics. For someone like me, who was not familiar with this, it was a very interesting listen. In fact, I might listen to it again sometime to try and get a better handle on who invented what. There are a lot of names to remember in a single listen. But even without remembering names and dates, it was still very interesting to learn how the field developed and what kind of thinking lead these historical thinkers to develop such powerful mathematical tools.

Have you listened to any of Sean Pratt’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No I haven't. But this was pretty good.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I wouldn't say that really... but it kept me entertained enough that I wanted to come back to it.

Excellent book, but a little short

This book crams a lot of information into a short time. I thought it was a fascinating look at the intersections between statistics and psychology. A lot of the book is devoted to exploring the ways that the human mind misinterprets randomness and misunderstands probabilities. The author brings out examples from game theory, the stock market, and scientific studies, then explains how your instincts probably don't match reality when a random (or uncertain) element is in play.

I would recommend this book to just about anyone. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was that I wanted more.