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A better way to combat knee-jerk biases and make smarter decisions, from Julia Galef, the acclaimed expert on rational decision-making. When it comes to what we believe, humans see what they want to see. In other words, we have what Julia Galef calls a soldier mindset. From tribalism and wishful thinking, to rationalizing in our personal lives and ...
Sam Freedman
May 07, 2021
Why Don't Students Like School?
A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom
Kids are naturally curious, but when it comes to school it seems like their minds are turned off. Why is it that they can remember the smallest details from their favorite television program, yet miss the most obvious questions on their history test?Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham has focused his acclaimed research on the biological and cognitiv...
Sam Freedman
Apr 17, 2021Fernando Pessoa was many writers in one. He attributed his prolific writings to a wide range of alternate selves, each of which had a distinct biography, ideology. and horoscope. When he died in 1935, Pessoa left behind a trunk filled with unfinished and unpublished writings, among which were the remarkable pages that make up his posthumous masterp...
Sam Freedman
Feb 17, 2021What do we mean when we say "I"? Can thought arise out of matter? Can a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"--a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. ...
Sam Freedman
Jan 25, 2021“Simply astounding. . . . The Kindly Ones is unmistakably the work of a profoundly gifted writer.” — TimeA literary prize-winner that has been an explosive bestseller all over the world, Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones has been called “a brilliant Holocaust novel… a world-class masterpiece of astonishing brutality, originality, and force,” and “...
Sam Freedman
Jan 25, 2021Also recommended by
Karen AvetisyanONE OF THE MOST ACCLAIMED BOOKS OF THE YEARNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Washington Post • NPR • Financial Times • The Guardian • Booklist • New Statesman • Daily Telegraph • Irish Times • Dallas Morning News • Sunday Times • New York Post "A big, sprawling, ultimately stunning crime tableau." – Janet Maslin, New York Times"You can't ask for mor...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020The New York Times bestselling second novel in the explosive Power of the Dog series--an action-filled look at the drug trade that takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Book Two of the Power of the Dog Series It's 2004. Ad�n Barrera, kingpin of El Federaci�n, is languishing in a California federal pris...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020Drug lord Miguel Angel Barrera is head of the Mexican drug federación, responsible for millions of dollars worth of cocaine traffic into the US and the torture of those who stand in its way. His nephew, Adan Barrera, is his worthy successor.Art Keller is a US government operative, so determined to obtain revenge for a murdered colleague that his pu...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020Also recommended by
Devon Sawa
King Leopold's Ghost
A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly c...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020Also recommended by
Maryn McKennaHow a New York Times bestselling author and New Yorker contributor parlayed a strong grasp of the science of human decision-making and a woeful ignorance of cards into a life-changing run as a professional poker player, under the wing of a legend of the gameIt's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know t...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020A National Book Award FinalistA PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end. Twenty...
Sam Freedman
Dec 12, 2020Light that Failed by Stephen Holmes Ivan Krastev
Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle
Ship of Theseus by J. J. Abrams
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
The Quincunx by Charles Palliser
Secondhand Time by Svetlana Alexievich
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman