LETRAS

In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates “the River,” the community of like-minded people whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. These professional risk-takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the twenty-first century. By immersing himself in the worlds of Doyle Brunson, Peter Thiel, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Altman, and many others, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. Most of us don’t have traits commonly found in the River: high tolerance for risk, appreciation of uncertainty, affinity for numbers—paired with an instinctive distrust of conventional wisdom and a competitive drive so intense it can border on irrational. For those in the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it. People in the River have increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—and the flaws in their thinking— is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. Taking us behind the scenes from casinos to venture capital firms, and from the FTX inner sanctum to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of power bro­kers and risk-takers.

The Stoics understood that if you can control your reactions and manage your emotions, you can achieve success. The same principles apply to our financial lives today. The greatest investors approach the markets with discipline, emotional distance, and self-mastery—lessons that the Stoics have been teaching us for thousands of years.

Calabria, 1960. Francesca Loftfield, a twenty-seven-year-old, starry-eyed American, arrives in the isolated mountain village of Santa Chionia tasked with opening a nursery school. There is no road, no doctor, no running water or electricity. And thanks to a recent flood that swept away the post office, there’s no mail, either. Most troubling, though, is the human skeleton that surfaced after the flood waters receded. Who is it? And why don’t the police come and investigate? When the local priest’s housekeeper begs Francesca to help determine if the remains are those of her long-missing son, Francesca begins to ask a lot of inconvenient questions. As an outsider, she might be the only person who can uncover the truth. Or she might be getting in over her head. As she attempts to juggle a nosy landlady, a suspiciously dashing shepherd, and a network of local families bound together by a code of silence, Francesca finds herself forced to choose between the charitable mission that brought her to Santa Chionia, and her future happiness, between truth and survival. Set in the wild heart of Calabria, a land of sheer cliff faces, ancient tradition, dazzling sunlight—and one of the world’s most ruthless criminal syndicates—The Lost Boy of Santa Chionia is a suspenseful puzzle mystery, a captivating romance, and an affecting portrait of a young woman in search of a meaningful life.

The year is 1087, and a pox is sweeping through the Italian city of Bari. When a lowly monk is visited by Saint Nicholas in his dreams, he interprets the vision as a call to serve the sick. But his superiors, and the power brokers they serve, have different plans for the tender-hearted Brother Nicephorus. Enter Tyun, a charismatic treasure hunter renowned for “liberating” holy relics from their tombs. The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas are rumored to weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick, Tyun says. For the humble price of a small fortune, he will steal the bones and deliver them to Bari, curing the plague and restoring glory to the fallen city. And Nicephorus, the “dreamer,” will be his guide. What follows is a heist for the ages, as Nicephorus is swept away on strange tides, and alongside even stranger bedfellows, to commit sacrilegious theft. Based on real historical accounts, Nicked is a swashbuckling saga, a medieval novel noir, a meditation on the miraculous, and a monastic meet-cute, filled with wide-eyed wonder at the world that awaits beyond our own borders.

Avoid the speed trap! Discover how changemakers can find lasting solutions to urgent social problems through a proven 5-step process for listening thoughtfully, building broad support, and exploring unconventional options. Society celebrates leaders who promise fast, easy solutions to the world’s problems—but quick fixes are just mirages that fade, leaving us with the same broken systems. The truth is, effective social change happens through slow, intentional actions.

Encontrar un modo de llegar al infierno y, una vez allí, llevarse un alma. Un plan sencillo, si no fuera porque la gente que realiza este peculiar viaje rara vez consigue volver y porque nunca se sabe qué huella puede dejar en una persona haber estado en un lugar como ese. Pero Galaxy «Alex» Stern está decidida a rescatar a Darlington, incluso si eso supone renunciar a su futuro en Yale. Como les han prohibido rescatarlo, Alex y Dawes no pueden pedir ayuda a la Novena Casa, así que reúnen a un equipo de dudosos aliados para la misión. Juntos deberán recorrer un laberinto de textos arcanos y artefactos extraños para desvelar los secretos mejor guardados del campus. Pero cuando varios profesores comienzan a morir, Alex sabe que no se trata de meros accidentes. Algo mortal merodea por New Haven, y si quiere sobrevivir a lo que quiera que sea, deberá enfrentarse a los monstruos de su pasado y a la oscuridad oculta tras los muros de la universidad. Con una historia que atrapa y los giros de guion propios de Bardugo, La huella del infierno extiende ante nosotros un mundo lleno de magia, violencia y monstruos muy reales.