Knox County Public Library offers a new take on its monthly lunch and learn program

Books Sandwiched In replaces the popular Brown Bag Green Book Series with a broader focus on trending current events

KNOXVILLE -- The public is invited to join the conversation about important and trending books in Knox County Public Library's new program series called Books Sandwiched In, a monthly lunchtime discussion with a focus on books about current issues.

The first book to launch the new series is The Signal and the Noise: Why most predictions fail, but some don't by Nate Silver, at noon on Wednesday, January 16 at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street. The discussion will be led by the City of Knoxville's Deputy to the Mayor and Chief Policy Officer Dr. William Lyons.

This series will take the place of the highly successful series Brown Bag, Green Book, which has had a regular and strong attendance for the past three years. "The success of Brown Bag Green Book has demonstrated that Knoxvillians have a real interest in and concern for what is going on in the world around them," Emily Ellis, Coordinator of both programs said. "Talking about the environment is critical and we will continue those conversations. The new series will add other important topics and sometimes find ways that these new topics overlap with environmental sustainability."

In The Signal and the Noise, Silver visits the most successful forecasters in a range of areas, from hurricanes to baseball, from the poker table to the stock market, from Capitol Hill to the NBA. He explains and evaluates how these forecasters think and what bonds they share. What lies behind their success? Are they good—or just lucky? What patterns have they unraveled? And are their forecasts really right? He explores unanticipated commonalities and exposes unexpected juxtapositions. And sometimes, it is not so much how good a prediction is in an absolute sense that matters but how good it is relative to the competition. In other cases, prediction is still a very rudimentary—and dangerous—science.

"Nate Silver is a master of highlighting and simplifying the assumptions that enable our ability to forecast physical, social, political outcomes," Lyons says. "In this insightful book he notes the importance of human judgment as a valuable supplement to the use of probability-based models to understand and explain some of the most important recent events."

Before joining the City, Lyons spent several decades as Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee and was director of UT's Social Science Research Institute from 1991 to 1995. Lyons has conducted surveys for government agencies, corporations, the state of Tennessee and the city of Knoxville and Knox County, among others, including numerous political candidates. He served as the Political Analyst for WBIR TV in Knoxville from 1975 until 2003.

The series will continues with the following programs:
February 20: Former Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV will discuss The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
March 20: Author Jay Erskine Leutze will discuss his own book Stand Up That Mountain: The Battle to Save One Small Community in the Wilderness Along the Appalachian Trail
April 17: Knoxville Attorney Wanda Sobieski will discuss The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work, and Family by Madeleine Kunin

The public is invited to join the conversation. Bring your favorite sandwich or pick up something from a downtown restaurant. Copies of the books are available at the Library if you'd like to read one before the program.


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Published January 5, 2013