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End Notes: The Week in Eric's Two Books

September 19, 2020

Welcome to the second issue of End Notes, a weekly newsletter with curated reading recommendations and a recap of the new posts on E2B. Below you'll find high-quality stories and articles with long shelf-lives that rise above the rest of what I've read.

You'll notice a couple updates to this week's edition, including:
  • Simple 'short/medium/long' notations next to each story recommendation so you can sort the quick bites from the longreads
  • One sentence summaries of the new posts on Eric's Two Books
I've also rotated in a couple new story categories and will continue to keep the lineup fresh over time. As always, all feedback is very much appreciated and feel free to forward to a friend!

Read well,
Eric

New Blog Posts on Eric's Two Books

No (More) Writing About Writing

A short post about the difficulties of writing a post. Hopefully the Creative Writing anecdote salvages this one.

Can You Step in the Same River Twice?

How I plan on tackling a backlog of ideas.

College Collapse

A 2018 email predicting financial trouble at private colleges.

Stories Worth Sharing

Life Lessons

You Have No Competition
Of Dollars and Data; published 10/30/18; short read
"This is why you have no competition. Because you are only competing against your own behavior, your own biases, and your own habits. If you don’t have these under control, you have already lost because you aren’t at your best."

The Crime Beat

The Curious Cons of the Man Who Wouldn’t Die
GQ; published 5/20/19; long read
"Within a year, HIV was undetectable in his blood. The good news was that Mark was going to live. That was also the bad news."

My Country 'Tis of Thee (stories about America)

The plot against America: Inside the Christian right plan to "remodel" the nation
Salon.com; published 4/13/19; medium read
“Every single, little expansion, if you look at who's behind it, it is the people that want to get that door kicked open for private religious education," the mother of two children on the autism spectrum said. "All we (families with disabled students) are was the way for them to crack open the door.”

Stuff You Didn't Know You Wanted to Know

Animal Extinction: Caring for the Last of a Species
The Atlantic; published July 2019; medium read
"When animals die out, the last survivor is called an endling. It is a word of soft beauty, heartbreaking solitude, and chilling finality."

Animal Spirits (on the markets and the economy)

Common Plots of Economic History
Collaborate Fund blog; published July 2019; long read
"The most common plot of economic history is the role of surprises. The reason surprises occur is not because our models are wrong or our intelligence is low. It’s because the odds that Adolf Hitler’s parents argued on the evening nine months he was born were the same as them conceiving a child. Technology is hard to predict because Bill Gates may have died from polio if Jonas Salk got cranky and gave up on his quest to find a vaccine. The reason we couldn’t predict the student loan growth is because an airport security guard may have confiscated a hijacker’s knife on 9/11. That’s all there is to it."