Martin Plimmer and Brian King Beyond Coincidence

Beyond Coincidence

Martin Plimmer and Brian King

Dunne, Jan 2006, $23.95, 288 pp.

ISBN: 0312340362

This is a terrific look at the failures of the law of probability as the authors provide over two hundred seemingly random events that appear impossible yet are documented as occurring. The included anecdotal are fun to follow though many are macabre like the sisters driving on separate surprise visits to one another crashing into each other or the three unrelated Birds crashing their three vehicles with one another. The stories grip the reader who wonders what next can happen, but hope not to them. Fans will ponder if the new age pseudoscience intelligent design has validity as the hands behind the improbable described real happenings. However, before the claims are made that this tome makes physics doctrine of intelligent design, let's not ignore that some of the outcomes of the events must have been made by an ironic stand-up comic using people as cosmic jokes. When Composer Osborne asked poet Raine if he wanted to collaborate on an opera based on a Pasternak work if they gave permission, the latter said yes, had the book in hand to read before the call and had permission since his wife is the author's niece. Believe it or not this collection is no coincidence that it is a fascinating fun analysis of the impossible happening inside a chaotic world that leads to the odds of a demand for a sequel quite high.

Harriet Klausner