The book is about the conversations the author Will Schwalbe has with his mother while she underwent pancreatic cancer treatment. Mary Anne, the author’s mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2007. For a span of two years she undergoes treatment at a cancer hospital in NY that included long hours of chemotherapy sessions. The author often used to accompany her mother for all her treatments. Most of the doctors give their verdict that the cancer has spread and the various treatments can only delay her eventual death.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEWj93XjON0?rel=0]

The author urges the reader to develop a “probabilistic perspective” towards many aspects that one comes across in life. Rational thought about randomness is far better than irrational emotional responses. Whenever we see things being reported, coincidences being sighted, it is better to start off by understanding the question “how unlikely is the event?”. One needs to figure ,” Out of How many ? question to answer the likelihood of the event .

-- Lloyd Trefethen

The book is about 800 pages long.It is a classic reference to solve ODEs and thus contains almost all the tricks of the trade to solve an ODE, be it analytically or numerically. The good thing about the book is that various methods are presented in the form of a “lesson-exercise-solution” format. Each lesson has good enough examples to give a clear idea of the technique used to solve the ODE.