Local bestsellers for the week ended April 20
Simon & Schuster
4.
Henry Holt and Co
5.
Abby Jimenez
Forever
6.
Katie Kitamura
Riverhead Books
7.
Knopf
8.
David Baldacci
Grand Central Publishing
9.
Clare Leslie Hall
Simon & Schuster
10.
Grove Press
HARDCOVER NONFICTION
1.
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
2.
Crash Course Books
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3.
Mel Robbins
Hay House LL
C
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4.
Scribner
5.
Riverhead Books
6.
Pantheon
7.
Elaine Pagels
Doubleday
8.
Melinda French Gates
Flatiron Books
9.
Knopf
10.
Russell Shorto
W. W. Norton & Company
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PAPERBACK FICTION
1.
Vintage
2.
Harper Perennial
3.
Daniel Mason
Random House Trade Paperbacks
4.
Amor Towles
Penguin Books
5.
Kaliane Bradley
Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
6.
Grove Press
7.
Vintage
8.
Catapult
9.
Emily Henry
Berkley
10.
Rebecca Yarros
Entangled: Red Tower Books
PAPERBACK NONFICTION
1.
Crown
2.
Matt Kracht
Chronicle Book
3.
Milkweed Editions
4.
Michael Finkel
Vintage
5.
Knopf
6.
Vintage
7.
Patrick Bringley
Simon & Schuster
8.
Hanif Abdurraqib
Random House Trade Paperbacks
9.
Rashid Khalidi
Metropolitan Books
10.
Bessel van der Kolk
M.D. Penguin
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The New England Indie Bestseller List, as brought to you by IndieBound and NEIBA, for the week ended Sunday, April 20, 2025. Based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the New England Independent Booksellers Association and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
How ‘Jeopardy!' whiz Ken Jennings learned to make ‘Kennections' everywhere and why he fears AI
Ken Jennings wants you to know he didn't name his trivia game 'Kennections.' 'It's really an unpleasant name,' the 'Jeopardy!' champion turned host says of the quizzes now published weekly by Mental Floss. 'We have to lead with that. It was suggested by an editor at Parade Magazine, but it doesn't look good or sound good.' But Jennings loves the quizzes themselves, which are now collected (kellected?) in 'The Complete Kennections.' The Simon & Schuster release, on shelves July 29, follows earlier Jennings books that included more writing. Those include: 'Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs,' 'Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks,' 'Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids' and '100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife.' Jennings recently spoke about his books, AI and why trivia matters. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Was writing books always a goal? I was an English major in college. I wanted to write and to teach, but writing didn't seem like a practical choice. I was also doing a double major in computer science, and in 2000 it was absurdly easy to get a job at a friend's startup, even if you were a terrible programmer, which I was. Writing about geography and myths and fabled places of the afterlife all seem to make sense coming from the brain of a 'Jeopardy!' champion. It's easy to imagine the same kid in an elementary school library, reading about these things in the World Book encyclopedia during a rainy recess. That's my origin story. I was just a sponge for weird information. That's my origin story right there. I thought of 'Jeopardy!' as a fun, crazy summer and did not think it would be my life, so I tried making each book less about 'Jeopardy!' and trivia than the one before it. Is the information in your books trivial, or do you think it's important to get readers to understand geography and the way our culture passes down myths and tales? I'm a believer that trivia is not just a bar pastime, or even a way for little Lisa Simpsons to get told they're smart into adulthood. I always felt trivia was kind of a universal social good, a way to enjoy cultural literacy. I feel I'm part of the last generation that had to justify having nerdy interests. It was kind of shameful and made you the punchline of jokes in movie comedies and stand-up. Today, it seems self-evident to everyone younger than us that, well, of course you would just be obsessive about lunchboxes or about 'Battlestar Galactica' or fossils. That's totally normalized, and it's actually good. But I've also been mourning the loss of generalists, people who knew a little bit about everything, which is what 'Jeopardy!' celebrates, but it's not fashionable. We live in a siloed society of specialists. And I really think we'd be better off if everybody knew a little bit about everything. I do think it's good to know trivia is not something that makes you better than other people. It doesn't exist to show off or even to make you feel smarter about yourself. Ideally, it should bring people together and make the world more interesting and make you a more sparkling conversationalist. 'Jeopardy!' and your books strive to make learning facts fun. Is there a lesson there for educators? I think that's the beauty of trivia. I wrote a series of books for kids with amazing facts because I liked that kind of book when I was a kid. And you can see it in a classroom, when you see kids' eyes light up about information and about serious subjects and about knowledge when it's presented in a fun way, especially with narrative. Narrative is the secret sauce. It just makes kids think the world is an amazing adventure and you just have to be curious and dig into it. But that gets beaten out of us, and then a lot of us at some point just specialize in one thing. You need to remind people that learning is not a chore. If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong. And trivia is very good at that. Every good 'Jeopardy!' clue tells a story in some way, saying, here's why you should want to know this or here's what this might have to do with life and the reason why this is not random minutia, which I think is a lot of people's stereotype of trivia nerds. A trivia question can help you connect it to other things. Trivia is just an art of connections. That's certainly true in your 'Kennections' book. I grew up doing crosswords, riddles and rebuses. I've always liked trivia that rewards not just the recall of the right fact but has a little more mental clockwork involved so you have to solve some puzzles. You have to analyze the clue and figure out why it exists and what it's asking or what it's not asking, what was included, what was omitted. There's a lot of analysis that can kind of lead you to the right answer by deduction, even if you don't know the right fact off the top of your head. One half of your brain is just trying to recall these five facts, but you've got this other half that's trying to figure it out and step back and take the big picture. And it might be something outside the box. The art of it is finding five things that fit in the category but that can have double meanings: Commodore is both a computer and a member of a Lionel Richie combo. You write that 'Kennections' consumes your life — you go into a bagel store and wonder if you can build five questions out of the flavors. Is the problem that in your day-to-day life, you're constantly seeing things and thinking things this way? Or is the problem that you can't say this out loud because you'll make your family crazy? That's something I learned early — that being this trivia-loving kid has the potential to be annoying. But my kids know what they're getting from me at this point. And they both have the gene themselves. One is obsessed with Major League Baseball, and one is obsessed with the history of Disney theme parks, and they have encyclopedic knowledge every bit as awe-inspiring and freakish as I had as a kid. And I'm proud of that. Do you worry about living in a culture that's so polarized that facts aren't even universally received and where AI takes over people's need to be curious, allowing students to take shortcuts in learning? I think an oligarch class is going to deliver us a combination of both, where the AI will not only create reliance on it but give us bad, counterfactual information about important issues. And it's really something I take seriously. It's really something we need to be pushing back on now. You don't want to trust an AI summary of a subject or AI's take on an issue without understanding who controls that algorithm and why they want you to hear that information.
Yahoo
a day ago
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Patriots to wear new ‘Rivalries' jerseys against Jets this season
The Patriots have announced that they will be wearing their new 'Rivalries' uniform against the Jets this upcoming season. In a recent social media post, the Pats teased their new uniforms, which are set to be revealed on August 28. In a follow-up post, the Pats also revealed that they will be wearing the jerseys against the Jets on November 13. Earlier this year, the NFL announced that eight teams will be donning the 'Rivalries' jerseys this year: the AFC East and NFC West. To speculate, in the previous teasers, the Patriots say to prepare for a Nor'easter, and in the teaser announcing their matchup against the Jets, the New England Patriots refer to themselves as Boston. Could we possibly see the old Boston 'Pat the Patriots' away jerseys? The last time the Pats donned those was 2009, when the NFL commemorated the anniversary of the AFL. In the past year, plenty of fans have also wanted to see the return of the Patriots 90's 'Flying Elvis' jerseys, a royal blue colored jersey with a pinstripe pattern on top of it, and who can forget the giant logo on the shoulder pads? Only time will tell what the Patriots' new alternate jersey will be. This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available. Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Yahoo
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This CT estate was home to a famous songwriter. Its new owner will need to keep it intact
This Connecticut home has appeared on HGTV's Zillow Gone Wild and it sure is unique. The home at 22 Ketcham Road in Ridgefield was owned by Jim Steinman and includes the very piano where he wrote 'I'd Do Anything for Love,' 'Total Eclipse of the Heart,' and Celine Dion's 'It's All Coming Back to Me Now.' Steinman died in April 2021 and left behind the home he lived in for nearly 30 years. Stretching over 1.5 acres and over 6,100 square feet, the 'quaint country cottage' became his 'personal sanctuary where he envisioned and built his masterful home and studio that served to inspire artistic creation and joyful entertaining.' Steinman had commissioned New England architect Rob Bramhall to do the work on the home. Listed for $5 million, the 2 bedroom, 4 bathroom home is filled with Steinman's possessions. According to its listing, Steinman 'spent over $6 million in the construction alone and his divine collections are truly priceless.' Interested buyers will have access to an art catalogue listing all of the pieces included in the sale. One of the most unique parts of the sale, though, is that according to its listing, 'the sum total of the individual components in this offering is believed to far exceed the list price, but the intention is to honor Jim by keeping his sanctuary intact.' This new CT restaurant has a robot waitress. (really) But it's the food bringing in customers. To honor Steinman's legacy, the estate's intention is to 'find the next custodian who will be enthralled by the transformative power of Jim's home and art.' It is listed by Laura Ancona of William Pitt – Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International. Solve the daily Crossword
