Maria Konnikova

The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova is a riveting journey into the world of professional poker, but more significantly, it is a profound exploration of human decision-making, luck, and psychology. Maria Konnikova, a New York Times bestselling author and seasoned contributor to the New Yorker, steps out of her comfort zone into the unpredictable realm of high-stakes poker. Remarkably, she...

The con artist: from Bernie Madoff to Clark Rockefeller to Lance Armstrong. How do they get away with it? And what keeps us falling for them, over and over again? In The Confidence Game, Maria Konnikova investigates the psychological principles that underlie each stage of the swindle, from the put-up all the way to the fix, and how we can...

No fictional character is more renowned for his extraordinary powers of mind than Sherlock Holmes. But what exactly is it that sets him apart as a detective of the highest order, and can we harness his genius? In Mastermind, psychologist Maria Konnikova shows us how we can all channel Holmes's famous powers of deduction, observation, memory, and imagination. Drawing on...