“I didn’t want to like Jess Walter.” Ann K. Ryles interviews Jess Walter about his new short story collection We Live in Water, fatherhood, poverty, and what he daydreams about while waiting in line at the grocery store at The Rumpus.
Grocery Shopping with Jess Walter
Dzanc and Melville Houses’s Independence Sales
Not to be outdone by Graywolf, Dzanc Books is also offering an Independence Sale of its own. You have until July 7th to buy one, get one free over at their website. Likewise for Melville House, which is offering a 40% discount on everything it’s got.
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Words, Quantitatively
Google has just released a tool that lets you see how frequently certain words have appeared in the millions of books from all eras that Google has scanned. It’s pretty neat. Here are some presidents, technologies, and the meaning of life.
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The Illusion of Confidence
Over-confident people enter into our lives in many forms: military planners, Wall Street investors, that chick shouting *NSYNC into the mic at the back of the bar. Daniel Kahneman’s new book Thinking, Fast and Slow, deals with this phenomenon of human nature. Read an excerpt here.
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Alas, Poor Everyone
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Do You Listen to Your Hunch?
Complex problems do not necessarily need complex solutions, and more detailed analysis does not necessarily improve a decision, but often makes it worse. In other words: sometimes it’s better to listen to your gut. What do you do?