Simpson from Oz

Anthony Fauci is arguably the most famous–and most revered–doctor in the world today. His role guiding America sanely and calmly through Covid (and through the torrents of Trump) earned him the trust of millions during one of the most terrifying periods in modern American history, but this was only the most recent of the global epidemics in which Dr. Fauci played a major role. His crucial role in researching HIV and bringing AIDS into sympathetic public view and his leadership in navigating the Ebola, SARS, West Nile, and anthrax crises, make him truly an American hero.

With the Soviet Union extinct, Saddam Hussein defeated, and U.S. power at its zenith, the early 1990s promised a “kinder, gentler America.” Instead, it was a period of rising anger and domestic turmoil, anticipating the polarization and resurgent extremism we know today. In When the Clock Broke, the acclaimed political writer John Ganz tells the story of America’s late-century discontents.

PLAYGROUND follows four lives – a marine biologist, an artist, a schoolteacher, and an AI pioneer – that intersect on an island in French Polynesia when it is chosen as a base for seasteading, humanity’s next great adventure.

In his brilliantly illuminating new book Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in our imperial past. In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the COVID crisis. And yet empire is a subject weirdly hidden from view.

Fitzgerald’s memoir-in-essays begins with a childhood that moves at breakneck speed from safety to violence, recounting an extraordinary pilgrimage through trauma to self-understanding and, ultimately, acceptance. From growing up in a Boston homeless shelter to bartending in San Francisco, from smuggling medical supplies into Burma to his lifelong struggle to make peace with his body, Fitzgerald strives to take control of his own story: one that aims to put aside anger, isolation and entitlement to embrace the idea that one can be generous to oneself by being generous to others.

For the Dogs, the war has only just begun. Caught up in the siege of Calais, in the midst of a brutal eleven-month blockade of a small port on the French coast, they are no longer blindly walking into the unknown. But the men still have more questions than answers about what faces them–and why. What are they really fighting for? And why does the king care so much about taking such a small French town? The Dogs aren't paid to ask questions but in their work, they have the means to make people talk.

July 1346. The Hundred Years' War has begun, and King Edward and his lords are on the march through France. But this war belongs to the men on the ground. Swept up in the bloody chaos, a tight-knit company from Essex must stay alive long enough to see their home again. With sword, mace and longbow, the Essex Dogs will fight, from the landing beaches of Normandy to the bloodsoaked field of Crécy.

Meet Abbas. Woodcarver, toy maker, dreamer. Abbas is seventeen when he is whisked away to Tipu Sultan's glorious palace in Mysore. Apprenticed to the legendary clockmaker Monsieur Du Leze, he is ordered to create an ingenious musical tiger to delight Tipu's sons. In the eccentric Du Leze, Abbas finds an unexpected friend who encourages his skill and hunger for learning, and through whom he also meets the unforgettable Jehanne, who has questions and ambitions of her own. But when British soldiers attack and loot Mysore, Abbas's world is turned upside down.

Sam Bankman-Fried wasn't just rich. Before he turned thirty he'd become the world's youngest billionaire, making a record fortune in the crypto frenzy. CEOs, celebrities and world leaders vied for his time. At one point he considered paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas so he could take his business there. Then it all fell apart.

Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world - already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices - that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine.