David Eagleman's Sum: A Deceptively Slim Mash-Up of Science, Faith and Literary Fiction
“I’ve never encountered a book quite like the marvelously intelligent and imaginative Sum,” writes Laura Grace Weldon over at Wired’s Geek Dad blog. The sentiment is enormously kind — and spot on. Written by rambunctious neuroscientist David Eagleman over the course of seven years, Sum is a unique... Continue Reading →
Margaret Atwood on Why People Love Giving Books as Gifts
Author Margaret Atwood needs no introduction. She’s simply one of Canada’s — one of the world’s — best-known champions of literary culture. In a recent op-ed for The Daily Telegraph, Atwood praises Unesco’s World Book Night and muses on the extraordinary power of books to connect people. From The... Continue Reading →
May the Best Idea Win: Trendhunter's Jeremy Gutsche Joins "The Pitch" on BNN
World renowned trend hunter and innovation speaker Jeremy Gutsche is now a judge on BNN’s new show, The Pitch, which gives two aspiring entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to the panel, who in turn give the entrepreneurs the advice they need to become successful. (Jeremy’s... Continue Reading →
Lavin Speakers at TED: Nathan Wolfe is Tracking Tomorrow's Pandemic, Today
To celebrate TED 2011, which is taking place this week in Long Beach, California, we’re posting some of our favorite TED talks from Lavin Agency speakers. Today, we hear from Nathan Wolfe, an extraordinary young scientist whose work has been featured in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone and on... Continue Reading →
An Ovation, and an Apology, for Civil Rights Icon Minnijean Brown Trickey
After Minnijean Brown Trickey gave her emotional keynote at Peru State College last month, something unexpected happened, something wonderful and heartfelt. Something 53 years in the making. First, a quick refresher: As a 16 year-old, Minnijean was a member of the Little Rock Nine, whose... Continue Reading →
Charles Fishman on Everything Corporations Need to Know About the New Age of Water
Above is a sneak peak at Charles Fishman’s new book, The Big Thirst, his globe-trotting tour de force on water — the world’s most precious and least understood resource. The golden age of water — an age when water was clean, cheap, and abundant — is coming to an end, says Fishman, a Fast Company... Continue Reading →
Indisputable Proof (Sort of) That College Students Love Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs
Every year, designer John Gall asks his first-year students to design a book cover for their all-time favorite book. Unsurprisingly, Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs — which the Onion AV Club calls, correctly, “one of the brightest pieces of pop analysis to appear this century” — is... Continue Reading →
Steven Pinker Answers Questions About IBM's Jeopardy-Winning Supercomputer
As IBM’s Watson outsmarts its human competitors on Jeopardy this week, Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist, weighs in on what the computer’s victory could mean for humanity. Asked by The New Yorker whether Watson is a scientific breakthrough or merely a parlor trick—an elaborate billion-dollar... Continue Reading →