In Making Numbers Count, Chip Heath argues that it's crucial for us all to be able to interpret and communicate numbers and stats more effectively so that data comes alive. By combining years of research into making ideas stick with a deep understanding of how the brain really works, Heath has discerned six critical principles that will give anyone the tools to communicate numbers with more transparency and meaning. These ideas - including simplicity, concreteness and familiarity - reveal what's compelling about a number and show how to transform it into its most understandable form. And if we can do this when we're using numbers, Heath tells us, then the idea of data won't drive people to panic. We're not hungry for numbers - there's an unfathomable amount of information being generated each year - but we are starved for meaning. The ability to communicate and understand numbers has never mattered more.

    By 1980 he had gained and lost two fortunes, had built his plastics company into a cash cow that supported his large extended family in great luxury. Killed in 1985 along with his wife Vera, the police asked Vera's sister if the Woodmans had any enemies, she replied , 'Yes, their sons.' Family Blood follows the investigation of these murders and reveals a story of the American Dream gone wrong. Gerald, behind his facade of charm, piety and filial warmth, was a ruthless, amoral businessman, a philandering husband, a ferociously abusive father, and a compulsive gambler. His sons, Neil and Stewart, inherited his charm and business principles. This is the story of the hidden dynamics of an outwardly successful American family that came to a shocking and violent end. It is also the story of a clan of whose menfolk guarded a dark secret from their wives - and everyone else - for three generations. Further it is the chronicle of two dogged police detectives who exposed the Woodman's sordid secrets to the light of justice.

    The Magic Monastery differs from its predecessors in that it contains not only traditional tales--mostly unpublished--but also stories specially written by Shah to complete the book as 'a course in non-linear thinking.'