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How to Live Dangerously: Why We Should All Stop Worrying, and Start Living
 
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How to Live Dangerously: Why We Should All Stop Worrying, and Start Living (Paperback)

by Warwick Cairns (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 188 pages
  • Publisher: Macmillan (20 Jun 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0230712215
  • ISBN-13: 978-0230712218
  • Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 13.2 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 128,885 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description
We live in a society governed by Fear. Packets of peanuts 'may contain nuts', our children are locked away safe indoors, and we are encouraged to fear risks that previous generations took for granted. The result is a temptation never to leave the house. "How to Live Dangerously" is a sane, straight-talking, wonderfully entertaining manifesto that assesses the real risks of modern-day life, and encourages us to embrace a new freedom in the way we live. Sometimes, shit happens - but you may as well get out there and enjoy yourself while you can because, in the end, you're a long time dead. Don't like your children much? You'd have to lock them out of the house every day for 186,000 years before they were abducted (and even then you'd get them back within 24 hours). Afraid of flying? If you really want to die in a plane crash, you'll need to take a flight a day for the next 26,000 years...

About the Author
Warwick Cairns is the author of About the Size of It -- a serious, but seriously funny book about measuring things. He lives in Windsor with his wife and two daughters.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Escape from your fears, 10 Aug 2008
By Dr. A. Gillespie (Derbyshire, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
What a fabulous book!
Invest a few short hours in reading this book, and you can challenge your fears . The statistics are pertinent, never get boring, and help put in context the fears that shape our lives. I was surprised just how many fears I recognised, and how many I needed to just let go.
Highly recommended!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Makes you think!, 4 Aug 2008
In a similar vein to the book Freakonomics, How to Live Dangerously is a wonderful book whose power lies in making you think. It's a "take a step back" look at modern life, and perhaps it's most potent theme is that taking risks often makes life safer.

If you're one of those people who gets annoyed at the "may contain nuts" warning on peanuts, or know somebody who won't let their children out of the house in case they get kidnapped [apparantly, you'd have to lock them out of the house every day for 186,000 years before they were abducted (and even then you'd get them back within 24 hours)], you'll want this book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars What are you scared of?, 25 Jan 2009
This book is brilliant, virtually the only bad thing about it is that it is too short!

Essentially Mr Cairns takes a look at our fears and explains in a succinct way how we often fear the things that are very inlikely to happen to us and ignore more mundane but very real risks. He explains the biological reason why this is, but it boils down to the fact that we tend to overrate those things that appear to pose an immediate danger to us (eg flying) whilst ignoring things that pose more of a long term but very real danger to us (eg lack of exercise).

I agree with one of the other reviewers who says Mr Cairns statistics are never boring. However the only word of warning I have is that statistics can be misleading. For example, towards the end of the book Mr Cairns writes that the proprotion of teenager road-accident victims as a percentage of the whole has risen in recent years. He attributes this to the fact that today's teenagers weren't allowed to go out unaided when they were younger and so their road sense is not that good. However it struck me that this is not necessarily so; maybe it is because mboile phones have become widely-used by teenagers recently and this is an alternative and equally as likely reason for the statistic.

Anyway this book is a brilliant argument against all the absurd regulations so beloved of the "health and safety industry". I heard recently that bonfires on Bonfire Night had been banned by one council and instead they had set up (no doubt at vast public cost) big TV screens which would show pictures of bonfires....how truly pathetic!!
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