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Sometimes an excellent book comes along, an eminent reviewer agrees to review it right away. And then things go wrong – conferences, holidays, work, whatever – prevent the reviewer reviewing. That’s what happened to Jack Cohen’s and Ian Stewart’s The Collapse of Chaos (Penguin, £8.99, 0 14 024675 4), so it’s good to see it out in paperback. It’s an absorbing read, and a fine approach to an intriguing question: we know much about chaos, but where does simplicity come from?