Extra Lives: Tom Bissell on Why Video Games Matter
“Are video games a worthy way to spend my time?” Tom Bissell’s journalistic, slightly nerdish quest to discover what is great and not-so-great about videogames and…
Italo Calvino Reading from Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities is Calvino at his thematic and structural best. For more about this amazing book check out his Top 5 and Why. The following excerpt was recorded…
One of the Best Fiction Works of All Time? The Book of Disquiet
“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” The Book of Disquiet stays with you, doesn’t want to be consumed all in a rush, and is…
1 Scientific Discovery +1 Social Satire = In Search of Lost Neanderthal Genomes
“Neanderthals are the closest extinct relative of contemporary humans.” Has Svante Pääbo found the Neanderthal in all of us, and turned paleontology on its head? In 2010, researchers…
Daniel Pink on the Science Behind Motivation
“There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does.” Daniel Pink, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human, makes a strong case for what…
Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human
“Today’s person spends way more time in front of screens. In fluorescent-lit rooms, in cubicles, being on one end or the other of an electronic data…
2 Reality Checks: David Shields’ Genre-Blurring Books
“A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea within us.” Reality Check #1: Reality Hunger The quote from Kafka is just one of innumerable…
Jane McGonigal: Change the World’s Broken Reality One Gamer at a Time
“Reality is broken. Game designers can fix it…We need to design ways for epic wins.” Like many current ideas keeping up with dynamic opportunities and dramatic…
2 Things I Discovered While Reading the Improbability Principle
“If something can happen, given enough time and enough opportunities (according to the law of very large numbers), it will happen.” What does David J. Hand…
Memo to the Future: 3 Mind-Bending Publishing Books
So is print really dead? Is it going to die anytime soon? 1. Post-digital Print: The Mutation of Publishing Since 1894 In this post-digital age, digital technology…
Chad Prevost, Ph.D. 