Taking us on a richly anecdotal ride through the more popular theories and historic instances of luck, Max Gunther unearths the 5 traits lucky people have in common — and which can change your luck:

• The Spiderweb Structure — The luckiest men and women are those who take the trouble to form a great many friendly contacts with other people.

• The Hunching Skill — Lucky people have the capacity to generate accurate hunches, and then to trust them and act on them.

• Audentes Fortuna Juvat — Boldness seems to create good luck. As a group, lucky people tend to be bold people.

• The Ratchet Effect — Lucky people typically seem to know how to discard bad luck before it becomes worse luck.

• The Pessimism Paradox — Lucky people are generally happy but never assume they are fortune's chosen ones. In fact, lucky people expect to be hit by bad luck — and prepare for it..

This is a most compelling and readable book on the fascinating subject of luck. Come, change yours.

Max Gunther (1926-1998), born in England, went to the United States when he was 11 years old, attended schools in New Jersey and received his BA from Princeton University in 1949. He served in the US Army in 1950 and 1951 and was a staff member of Business Week from 1951 to 1955. Mr Gunther then served as a contributing editor of Time for two years. From 1956 he published articles in several magazines, including Playboy. Among his other books are The Zurich Axioms, The Luck Factor, Instant Millionaires, Wall Street & Witchcraft and How to Get Lucky.

Mr Gunther lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where his wife was a real-estate broker. They had three children. The author said that his diversions included surfing and skating, carving chess sets and playing chess, and painting.