Mimi has eight books from the Statistics is Fun series. She plans on bringing two of the eight books with her in a road trip. (a) How many different

Mimi has eight books from the Statistics is Fun series. She plans on bringing two of the eight books with her in a road trip. 

(a) How many different ways can the two books be selected? 

(b) Please describe the method used and the reason why it is appropriate for answering the question. Just the answer, without the description and reason, will receive no credit.