【推荐3】In previous recessions (经济衰退), billionaires were hit along with the rest of us; it took almost three years for Forbes’s 400 richest people to recover from losses caused in 2008’s Great Recession. But in the coronavirus recession of 2020, most billionaires have gotten richer than ever before.

Billionaires increased their new billions just as millions of other Americans ran into terrible financial problems. More than 20 million people lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic. Food banks across the country are preparing for another great increase in demand. Why are American billionaires doing so well while so many other Americans suffer? People may find part of the reasons from the following fact. Stocks (股票) are overwhelmingly owned by the wealthy, and the stock market has recovered from its early-pandemic depths much more quickly than other parts of the economy.

But some billionaires are also benefiting from economic and technological trends that were accelerated by the pandemic. Among these are the owners and investors of retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, which have reported huge profits this year while many of their smaller competitors were defeated completely as the coronavirus spread.

Then there are companies that have bet on the rapid digitization of everything Eric Yuan, the chief executive of Zoom, became a billionaire in 2019. Now he is worth almost $20 billion. Dan Gilbert, the chairman of Quicken Loans, was worth less than $7 billion in March, now he commands more than $43 billion. But there is a great deal of stratification (层化) even among billionaires—richer billionaires got even richer in 2020 than the poorer ones did. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s funder, was worth about $113 billion at the start of the pandemic. Now he is worth $182 billion. Two years ago, Bezos was the only “centibillionaire” on earth—the trendy neologism (a new word) for people whose wealth exceeds (超过) ￥100 billion.

【推荐1】Crime fiction books have been popular with readers for many decades-so popular, in fact, that at a recent London Book Fair sales of the genre (类型) overtook general fiction for the first time ever, a development that had been widely anticipated. Commercial success, of course, does not impress everyone and there are those who believe crime fiction should not be held in such high regard. Well-known in this group is Sebastian Franklin, who has argued that most crime fiction books look more like crossword puzzles than literature. However, increasingly this is a minority opinion as crime fiction is becoming recognized as a rich and dynamic literary genre in around the world.

Crime writing really came to the public’s notice in the 1920s and 1930s with the books of the British author Agatha Christie. Christie was a productive writer, publishing more than 60 detective novels over a 50-year period, beginning in 1920.

Without a doubt, there are certain elements that tend to be repeated in Christie’s books. The stories generally focus on a well-off circle of people, whose peaceful lives are thrown into chaos by an unexplained crime. The location is often a restricted space of some sort: a train, an island, a boat, or a village. This is quite different, for example, to the world of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who often has the entire city of London as his hunting ground.

The books are also action-packed just like today’s most popular thrillers (惊悚小说). Christie mastered the art of the page-turner: events unfold so quickly and unpredictably that we keep reading to find out what happens next. The most significant consequence is that it is so simple to overlook vital clues.

It is worth reading a Christie book a second time just to notice how carefully she hides crucial information about the criminal’s identity.

A survey of contemporary crime writing shows that Agatha Christie’s legacy (遗产) is more important now than at any time previously, at the very point when crime writing has become the most popular of all book genres.

【推荐2】For Western designers, China and its rich culture have long been an inspiration for Western creative.

“It’s no secret that China has always been a source (来源) of inspiration for designers,” says Amanda Hill, chief creative officer at A+E Networks, a global media company and home to some of the biggest fashion (时尚) shows.

Earlier this year, the China Through A Looking Glass exhibition in New York exhibited 140 pieces of China-inspired fashionable clothing alongside Chinese works of art, with the aim of exploring the influence of Chinese aesthetics (美学) on Western fashion and how China has fueled the fashionable imagination for centuries. The exhibition had record attendance, showing that there is huge interest in Chinese influences.

“China is impossible to overlook,” says Hill. “Chinese models are the faces of beauty and fashion campaigns that sell dreams to women all over the world, which means Chinese women are not just consumers of fashion — they are central to its movement.” Of course, not only are today’s top Western designers being influenced by China — some of the best designers of contemporary fashion are themselves Chinese. “Vera Wang, Alexander Wang, Jason Wu are taking on Galliano, Albaz, Marc Jacobs — and beating them hands down in design and sales,” adds Hill.

For Hill, it is impossible not to talk about China as the leading player when discussing fashion. “The most famous designers are Chinese, so are the models, and so are the consumers,” she says. “China is no longer just another market; in many senses it has become the market. If you talk about fashion today, you are talking about China — its influences, its direction, its breathtaking clothes, and how young designers and models are finally acknowledging that in many ways.”

【推荐3】On March 7, I907, the English statistician Francis Galton published a paper which illustrated what has come to be known as the “wisdom of crowds” effect. The experiment of estimation he conducted showed that in some cases, the average of a large number of independent estimates could be quite accurate.

This effect capitalizes on the fact that when people make errors, those errors aren’t always the same. Some people will tend to overestimate, and some to underestimate. When enough of these errors are averaged together, they cancel each other out, resulting in a more accurate estimate. If people are similar and tend to make the same errors, then their errors won’t cancel each other out. In more technical terms, the wisdom of crowds requires that people’s estimates be independent. If for whatever reasons, people’s errors become correlated or dependent, the accuracy of the estimate will go down.

But a new study led by Joaquin Navajas offered an interesting twist (转折) on this classic phenomenon. The key finding of the study was that when crowds were further divided into smaller groups that were allowed to have a discussion, the averages from these groups were more accurate than those from an equal number of independent individuals. For instance, the average obtained from the estimates of four discussion groups of five was significantly more accurate than the average obtained from 20 independent individuals.

In a follow-up study with I00 university students, the researchers tried to get a better sense of what the group members actually did in their discussion. Did they tend to go with those most confident about their estimates? Did they follow those least willing to change their minds? This happened some of the time, but it wasn’t the dominant response. Most frequently, the groups reported that they “shared arguments and reasoned together”. Somehow, these arguments and reasoning resulted in a global reduction in error. Although the studies led by Navajas have limitations and many questions remain, the potential implications for group discussion and decision-making are enormous.

【推荐2】It was a sunny afternoon in June of 2022 when 20-year-old Anthony Perry stepped off the train at Chicago’s 69th Street station. On the platform, two men were fighting bitterly. Then the unthinkable happened: the pair fell over the edge and onto the tracks. One man ended up on his back. Suddenly, he started convulsing (抽搐) unnaturally. He had fallen on the third rail, the conduit (导线管) for the 600 volts of electricity that powers Chicago’s L trains. The aggressor leaped backward, bounded back up onto the platform and disappeared.

Perry couldn’t just stand there and watch. He sat at the edge of the platform and eased himself down. He took a few quick bounds and approached the victim. The guy looked dead, his body still moving violently as the electricity pulsed (搏动). Gathering up his courage, Perry reached down and grasped the victim’s wrist. Instantly, he felt a blast of electric shock shoot through his body. Perry shrank and jumped back. He reached down a second time, and was shocked again. But the third time he seized the man’s wrist and forearm and, braving the shock, pulled with all his strength. The guy’s body slid briefly along the third rail, coming to rest on the gravel on the outer edge of the tracks.

The man was breathing, but irregularly. Something wasn’t right. “Give him chest compressions (按压)!” yelled a woman. Perry was no expert, but for a few moments he worked on the man’s heart until the victim began convulsing. Then he heard a sudden noise behind him — medical workers and firefighters had arrived. Perry let the professionals take over. His heart still racing from the electric shocks, he climbed back up onto the platform, grabbed his things and headed home.

The evening news reported the incident. After a friend outed him to the media, Perry became the toast of Chicago. Perry was then recruited by the Chicago Fire Department and is now training to be an emergency medical technician.