The Bodley Head acquires Bellos’ book on randomness

The Bodley Head has acquired Random by Alex Bellos, a book that “reveals the stunning power of the coin-flip, telling the story of how it created the modern world”.

Stuart Williams, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Claire Paterson Conrad at Janklow & Nesbit. It will be published in hardback, trade paperback and digital formats in early 2026. 

The publisher says the book will be “the first popular science book to show plainly what happens inside a computer and how this relates to all of us".

It adds: “It will explore how coin-flipping is central to cutting-edge technological developments of recent years including crypto and AI. It will tell the stories of overlooked, pioneering computer scientists and mathematicians and reveal how the field is redefining concepts like truth, proof and secrets.

“In so doing Bellos shows how the computer’s ability to exploit and regulate unpredictability, to make use of uncertainty and error, is not only the most significant scientific breakthrough of the last fifty years but will also inevitably determine what happens in the next fifty and beyond.”

Bellos is an award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster whose books – which includes Alex’s Adventures in Numberland (Bloomsbury), various puzzle books and the Football School children’s book series (Walker Books).

He said: “Computers have transformed society, but few people have any idea about what goes on under the bonnet. Random will reveal the fundamental importance of coin-flipping in almost everything we use computers for. I’m excited to tell the story of how thinking about randomness – and harnessing its remarkable power — really has changed the world.“

Williams said: “It’s no secret that Alex Bellos has a rare gift for making numbers sing. Random is an expansive, ambitious story about how our world came to be as it is and how it might develop. It is full of deeply satisfying revelations, including the conceptual break-through that by abandoning certainty or being a little bit wrong, dead-ends can turn into incredible new vistas of possibility.”

Paterson Conrad added: “Thrilled that Alex is turning his hand to this cutting-edge mathematical theory in his next book. The subject - and the joyous way that Alex approaches it – could not be more timely or more relevant.”