The Science of Fear by Dan Gardner

One theme running through my reading choices, though far more prominent in my choice of audiobooks, is that of holding common conceptions/ideas up to mathematical scrutiny. This book is no exception. The hook on the dust jacket is that in the year after 9/11 thousands of Americans died from driving cars instead of flying. A further examination of that nugget is in there, and most of the book is in the same spirit.
The author takes a more-or-less informal tone, always good for books about dry statistics/economics. I've enjoyed other authors more on this front, but Gardner does well enough to keep you interested.
Perhaps one of the most important things to keep in mind is that this exploration-of-the-hidden-side-of genre book deals most or all of the time with death. It is of course interesting to read in other books about interesting connections and deep reasons, like the link between Roman chariots and the space shuttle (booster rockets have to fit on train tracks sized to match chariot paths), but this book gains immediacy and gravity by limiting itself to just issues of death and harm.
Ultimately, humans are irrational and they miscalculate odds, hardly a lesson worthy of an entire book. This book however provides some important soothing. For example, we may worry about getting breast or testicular cancer at a tragically young age, but it's exceedingly unlikely, so ideally you can stop worrying about most of the things keeping you up at night and get on with things.
Good book, and will definitely make you less freaked out every time you read the news.