But What If Were Wrong

New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or—weirder still—widely known, but entirely disrespected)? Is it possible that we “overrate” democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we’ve reached the end of knowledge? Klosterman visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past. Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, But What If We’re Wrong? is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers—George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others—interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It’s a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It’s about how we live now, once “now” has become “then.”

“Full of intelligence and insights, as the author gleefully turns ideas upside down to better understand them. . . Replete with lots of nifty, whimsical footnotes, this clever, speculative book challenges our beliefs with jocularity and perspicacity.” —Kirkus (starred review) “Klosterman’s trademark humor and unique curiosity propel the reader through the book. He remains one of the most insightful critics of pop culture writing today and this is his most thought-provoking and memorable book yet.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) The tremendously well-received New York Times bestseller by cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, exploring the possibility that our currently held beliefs and assumptions about the world will eventually be proven wrong—now in paperback. But What If We're Wrong? is a book of original, reported, interconnected pieces, which speculate on the likelihood that many universally accepted, deeply ingrained cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Covering a spectrum of objective and subjective topics, the book attempts to visualize present-day society the way it will be viewed in a distant future. Klosterman cites original interviews with a wide variety of thinkers and experts—including George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Ross, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Dan Carlin, Nick Bostrom, and Richard Linklater. Klosterman asks straightforward questions that are profound in their simplicity, and the answers he explores and integrates with his own analysis generate the most thought-provoking and propulsive book of his career.

What if everything we are most certain about turns out to be totally wrong?

“Why don’t you believe in God?” A simple question, but one for which I didn’t have a good answer. I was confident in what I believed; I just didn’t know how I’d arrived at that conclusion. Turns out the “how” is what led me off track. I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people just like me who are on a journey to find the truth. Most people have the same fundamental questions that keep them from faith: Why do bad things happen to good people? How accurate is the Bible? What about evolution? This book tackles those questions and poses new ones, starting with the title: What if you’re wrong? Get ready to laugh as we walk through what it looks like to go from a non-believer to a devout follower of Christ.

New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin’s hilarious and horrifying John Dies at the End series continues with If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe. "Pargin once again delights with scathing social commentary thinly disguised as an outrageous action novel...This is a feast."—Publishers Weekly "Within the snarky humor is an incisive commentary on social media and the state of our connected world, and a story about trauma and how people lash out when they’re hurt...This isn’t just a funny tale of inept supernatural investigators; it’s a story of people struggling through pain to find a better path. Pargin offers us a welcome note of hope." — Booklist If the broken neon signs, shuttered storefronts, and sub-standard housing didn’t tip you off, you’ve just wandered into the city of “Undisclosed”. You don’t want to be caught dead here, because odds are you just might find yourself rising from the grave. That hasn’t stopped tourists from visiting to check out the unusual phenomena that hangs around our town like radioactive fallout. Interdimensional parasites feeding on human hosts, paranormal cults worshipping demonic entities, vengeful teenage sorcerers, we’ve got it all. Did I mention the possessed toy? It’s a plastic football-sized egg that’s supposed to hatch an adorable, colorful stuffed bird when a child “feeds” it through a synchronized smartphone app. What’s actually inside is an otherworldly monstrosity that’s enticing impressionable wayward youth into murdering folks and depositing their body parts inside the egg as if it’s a hungry piggy bank to trigger the end of the world. That’s where Dave, John, and Amy come in. They face supernatural threats so the rest of us don’t have to—and sometimes even earn a couple of bucks to so do. But between the bloody ritual sacrifices and soul-crushing nightmares, our trio realizes this apocalypse is way above their pay grade.

If he had been with me everything would have been different... I wasn't with Finn on that August night. But I should've been. It was raining, of course. And he and Sylvie were arguing as he drove down the slick road. No one ever says what they were arguing about. Other people think it's not important. They do not know there is another story. The story that lurks between the facts. What they do not know—the cause of the argument—is crucial. So let me tell you...

Dissolving and dismantling your belief that something is wrong with you and replacing that with what is. Redefining a new interpretation of right and wrong

"What Went Wrong?" has revolutionized the way industry views safety. The new edition continues and extends the wisdom, innovations and strategies of previous editions, by introducing new material on recent incidents, and adding an extensive new section that shows how many accidents occur through simple miscommunications within the organization, and how strightforward changes in design can often remove or reduce opportunities for human errors. Kletz' approach to learning as deeply as possible from previous experiences is made yet more valuable in this new edtion, which for the first time brings together the approaches and cases of "What Went Wrong" with the managerially focussed material previously published in "Still Going Wrong". Updated and supplemented with new cases and analysis, this fifth edition is the ultimate resource of experienced based anaylsis and guidance for the safety and loss prevention professionals. * A million dollar bestseller, this trusted book is updated with new material, including the Texas City and Buncefield incidents, and supplemented by material from Trevor Kletz's 'Still Going Wrong' * Now presents a complete analysis of the design, operational and for the first time, managerial causes of process plant accidents and disasters, plus their aftermaths * Case histories illustrate what went wrong, why it went wrong, and then guide readers in how to avoid similar tragedies: learn from the mistakes of others