You 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.”

A melancholy high school math teacher falls in love with the beautiful stranger who robbed his house and is drawn into her mysterious world and vows to protect her, although he is unsure exactly from whom, or from what. Original.

Meet Karl Floor: friendless, motherless, put-upon, living with his loudmouth stepfather and pretending to take satisfaction from teaching high school math. Karl returns home one day to discover his apartment being robbed by a beautiful woman named Sylvia. So begins a strange and mostly inadvertant saga: Karl, now in love with this unexpected woman, finds himself introduced to her friends and family, making promises to her, defending her honor (which she definitely has) against assailants (which she only might have). Sylvia is devastatingly attractive, and caught up in a situation that Karl, bless his heart, does his best to understand. As he gets pulled further into her life, and begged to solve her problems, Karl also begins to see his own limitations. Confronting his confusing paternal situation, his issues with class and responsibility, Karl emerges as an ingeniously funny, memorable, and heartwarming anti-hero. Matthew Sharpe addresses his heady themes with warmth and charisma. You Were Wrong is a lovingly satiric, intelligent, and deeply enjoyable novel with a voice all its own.

More than ever, politics seem to be driven by discord. People sitting together in pews every Sunday feel like strangers and loved ones at the dinner table feel like enemies. Toxic political dialogue, hate-filled rants on social media, and agenda-driven news stories have become the new norm. But it doesn't have to be this way. In I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening), two working moms from opposite ends of the political spectrum teach us that politics don't have to divide us. Instead, we can bring the same care and respect to policy discussions that we bring to the rest of our lives. Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, co-hosts of Pantsuit Politics, recently named an Apple Podcasts Show of the Year, give you all of the tools you need to: Respect the dignity of every person Recognize that issues are nuanced and can't be reduced to political talking points Listen in order to understand Lead with grace and patience Join Sarah from the left and Beth from the right as they teach you that people from opposing political perspectives truly can have calm, grace-­filled conversations with one another. Praise for I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): "Sarah and Beth are an absolute gift to our culture right now. Not only do they offer balanced perspectives from each political ideology, but they teach us how to dialogue well, without sacri­ficing our humanity." --Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author and speaker "Sarah from the left and Beth from the right serve as our guides through conflict and complexity, delivering us into connection. I wish every person living in the United States would read this compelling book, from the youngest voter to those holding the highest office." --Emily P. Freeman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Next Right Thing

For word nerds and grammar geeks, a witty guide to the most commonly mispronounced words, along with their correct pronunciations and pithy forays into their fascinating etymologies and histories of use and misuse. With wit and good humor, this handy little book not only saves us from sticky linguistic situations but also provides fascinating cocktail-party-ready anecdotes. Entries reveal how to pronounce boatswain like an old salt on the deck of a ship, trompe l'oeil like a bona fide art expert, and haricot vert like a foodie, while arming us with the knowledge of why certain words are correctly pronounced the "slangy" way (they came about before dictionaries), what stalks of grain have to do with pronunciation, and more. With bonus sidebars like "How to Sound like a Seasoned Traveler" and "How to Sound Cultured," readers will be able to speak about foreign foods and places, fashion, philosophy, and literature with authority.

A collection of essays extended from The New York Times' most-read article of 2016. Anyone we might marry could, of course, be a little bit wrong for us. We don’t expect bliss every day. The fault isn’t entirely our own; it has to do with the devilish truth that anyone we’re liable to meet is going to be rather wrong, in some fascinating way or another, because this is simply what all humans happen to be – including, sadly, ourselves. This collection of essays proposes that we don’t need perfection to be happy. So long as we enter our relationships in the right spirit, we have every chance of coping well enough with, and even delighting in, the inevitable and distinctive wrongness that lies in ourselves and our beloveds.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.