Bestsellers and Goodsellers: One-Month Retrospective

June 15, 2018

I think it’s likely that every author who has ever published a book has wondered if it has what it takes to be a bestseller. There was even a day or two last month when I thought The Book of Why might have a serious chance to make a bestseller list. But it didn’t, and […]

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My One Thousandth Post

June 3, 2018

Today my blog reaches a milestone — its one thousandth post! I started “dana blogs chess” a little over ten years ago, in October 2007, so that means I have averaged slightly less than a hundred posts per year. I wondered whether I should compose something special for the occasion, as I did when I […]

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First In-Depth Review of “The Book of Why”

June 2, 2018

Yesterday the first serious, in-depth review of The Book of Why appeared in The New York Times. This is the news that I have been holding my breath for over the last two weeks. I can see that the book is selling well. I can see that it has good customer reviews on Amazon.com. But […]

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Eavesdropping on Facebook, and Other Book News

June 1, 2018

I have to pass along this wonderful conversation about The Book of Why that took place on Facebook. A friend of mine sent me a link to it; I do not know any of the commenters personally. More than any sales numbers or Amazon rankings, this conversation warmed my heart because it shows that our […]

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Back in the Saddle!

May 30, 2018

This summer I’m going to spend three days a week in Berkeley, which gives me the opportunity for the first time to play in the Tuesday Night Marathon at the Mechanics Institute in San Francisco. I’ve wanted to play in this event for twenty years, but never been able to fit it into my schedule. […]

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A Dispatch From the Candy Factory

May 27, 2018

Do you remember the old I Love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel get jobs in a candy factory? They set up behind a conveyor belt that brings them the candies, and they are just supposed to wrap each one and put it back on the conveyor belt. Easy-peasy. Then the conveyor belt starts going […]

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Invitation to Free Chess Lecture

May 21, 2018

Things are calming down on the book front, and I am going to move gradually back to chess in this blog. As many readers know, I used to record lectures regularly for a website called ChessLecture. I decided to stop a few years ago. Not coincidentally, it was right around the time that I started […]

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Number 2 Science Book in America

May 20, 2018

News flash: The Book of Why is now #86 among all hardcover books on Amazon #18 among all science and math books on Amazon #2 among all hardcover science and math books on Amazon (behind only The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli)!!!! Dreams don’t usually come true at 9:47 on a Saturday night. But […]

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On Co-Authorship

May 18, 2018

One of my readers (Dan) asked if I could write a little bit about the process of co-writing a book. I’m happy to oblige! First, how did Judea and I get in touch in the first place? A lot of people have asked this. The long version of the story is on my main web […]

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Unforgettable

May 17, 2018

Tuesday, May 15, was an unforgettable day for me: the launch date for The Book of Why, the book I have been working on with Judea Pearl for the last three years. I’ve never been lucky enough to see a baby born, but I think that the “birth” of a book is similar in some […]

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