Sandy Shaw, who heads Middle Eastern operations at Coutts, a private bank based in London, says about a quarter of her clients are female, and are keen to keep control of their affairs, especially to ensure that their estates will pass to their children when they die.

ECONOMIST: Finance in the Middle East

Johann Sebastian Bach lost both of his parents when he was nine and watched ten of his children die young.

NEWYORKER: The Book of Bach

Case in point: Children in Louisiana die from this protozoan all the time when they go swimming in fresh water ponds.

FORBES: How Not to Die Using a Neti Pot

Needless to say, we had no idea that anything we were saying or doing that night, or even that year, would lead us to where we are today, which is married, with children, a mortgage, and a budding fear of the inevitable moment when one of us will die before the other.

NEWYORKER: Looking for Someone

But when he talks about the school board it is with surprising emotion: having seen two of his own children die, his friends say, he feels an obligation to save the rest.

ECONOMIST: Richard Riordan��s conjuring trick