This week's edition is an extended conversation with statistician David Spiegelhalter and author/journalist Michael Blastland about their new book The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger.

The stories are populated by archetypal characters: the eponymous Norm – very much a Mr Average – along with the more reckless Kelvin and hypercautious Prudence. The characters find themselves in dilemmas that are all to familiar to all of us, from the risk of boozing and smoking to the risk of doing that charity sky dive … well, maybe not all of us.

The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger is available at the Guardian bookshop. For John Grace's digested read of the book, click here.

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