Culture & Religion — November 5, 2009

Searching for the Self, in NYC and Abroad

What is the most personal work you’ve ever created? That was among the many questions novelist Paul Auster, known for exploring the paradoxes of identity in the New York Trilogy, “Moon Palace,” and his new “Invisible,” answered for Big Think this week.

An author closely associated with Brooklyn, Auster traced the arc of his career and the city itself over the many years he’s lived there, adding a few predictions about New York’s future. He also reminisced about his years abroad in France in the early 1970s and named the aspects of literature that are easiest to lose in translation.

Auster’s interview will be posted next Friday.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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