The thirtieth episode of GREAT PODVERSATIONS features ETHAN KROSS and MARIA KONNIKOVA discussing Kross’ latest book Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It.

ETHAN KROSS is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor in the University of Michigan’s Psychology Department and its Ross School of Business, he is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory at Michigan.

In Chatter, Kross explores the silent conversations we have with ourselves and explains how these conversations shape our lives, work, and relationships.

“Kross may be a scientist by trade, but with Chatter he proves himself a deft storyteller who, through levity and wit, creates an easily digestible work on the brain, how it works and how we can quiet our often relentless chatter.”—USA Today

Chatter  was chosen as one of the best new books of the year by The Washington Post, CNN and USA Today. The book is one of two Winter 2021 Official Selections of The Next Big Idea book club, chosen by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain and Dan Pink.

Ethan Kross has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed about his research on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR’s Morning Edition. His research has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science.

MARIA KONNIKOVA is the author, most recently of The Biggest Bluff, a New York Times bestseller, one of The Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020, and a finalist for The Telegraph Best Sports Writing Award for 2021. Her previous books are the bestsellers The Confidence Game, winner of the 2016 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, an Anthony Award and an Agatha Award finalist. Maria is a regularly contributing writer for The New Yorker whose writing has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Science Journalism Award.

While researching The Biggest Bluff, Maria became an international poker champion —and inadvertently turned into a professional poker player. Maria’s writing has been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing and translated into over twenty languages. Maria also hosts the podcast The Grift. Her podcasting work earned her a National Magazine Awards nomination in 2019

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross

The Biggest Bluff:How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself and Win  by Maria Konnikova

Original air date: 10/22/2021

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