Luck: What It Means and Why It MattersMP3 CD, 26 July 2016

For aspiring cricketer Ed Smith, luck was for other people. Like his childhood hero, Geoff Boycott, the tough, flinty Yorkshire man, the young Ed knew that the successful cricketer made his own luck by an application of will power, elimination of error, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. But when a freak accident prematurely ended Ed Smith's international cricketing career, it changed everything--and prompted him to look anew at his own life through the prism of luck.

Tracing the history of the concepts of luck and fortune, destiny and fate, from the ancient Greeks to the present day--in religion, in banking, in politics--Ed Smith argues that the question of luck versus skill is as pertinent today as it ever has been.