Subtitled ‘The Art and Science of Creating Good Luck’, Christian Busch’s ‘Connect the Dots’ (Penguin, £9.99, ISBN 9780241402122) has all the outward appearances of at worst one of those dreary airport bookshop business self-help books, or at best a 384-page statement of the obvious. But for the persistent reader there are rich rewards to be gleaned from tucking into the London School of Economics lecturer’s scientific analysis of the role chance plays in our success (or lack thereof), while proposing methods for turning good fortune into a financial fortune.

Perhaps a better term for those random events that we put down to chance or luck might be ‘serendipity’, suggests Busch. Inventions such as Nylon, Velcro, Viagra, Post-it notes, X-rays, penicillin, rubber and microwave ovens all involved serendipity. Presidents, superstars, professors, businesspeople – including many of the world’s leading CEOs – credit a large part of their success to serendipity...