Jay Bhattacharya

The time was the 1980s. The place was Wall Street. The game was called Liar’s Poker. Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years—a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business. From the frat-boy camaraderie of the forty-first-floor trading room to the killer instinct that made ambitious young men gamble everything on a high-stakes game of bluffing and deception, here is Michael Lewis’s knowing and hilarious insider’s account of an unprecedented era of greed, gluttony, and outrageous fortune.

A fly-on-the-wall account of the herd-immunity strategy that Sweden adopted during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the spring of 2020, as a new and deadly virus spread across the globe rapidly, the world shut down. But a small country in Northern Europe remained open. The Swedish Covid-19 strategy was alternately lauded and held up as a cautionary tale by international governments and journalists alike―with all eyes on what has been dubbed “The Swedish Experiment”. But what made Sweden take such a different path? In The Herd, journalist Johan Anderberg narrates the improbable story of a small nation that took a startlingly different approach to fighting the greatest global pandemic in over one hundred years. First, the government instituted no restrictions. Then, it declined to order the wearing of face masks. While the rest of the world looked on with incredulity, condemnation, admiration, and even envy, Sweden stood alone. But The Herd is more than just a look at the evolution of the singular Swedish Covid-19 strategy. With remarkable ease, Anderberg guides the reader through the history of epidemiology, R0-rates, inoculation, and international organizations and collaborations. He also presents a colorful cast of characters and the ticking-clock decisions they were faced with on a daily basis. “The Herd is a thrilling read about tight-knit groups of microbiologists and epidemiologists, old grudges, new alliances, and fiery emails… Anderberg is ambitious, knowledgeable, and fearless.” ―Dagens Nyheter “The Herd is exemplary journalism of the kind that comes close to the truth through skilled craftsmanship. Anderberg portrays the events in the right order. He relies on relevant facts. He puts the last year in a historical context. He examines without preconceived opinions… Anderberg’s book is like a Corona commission in its own right and a beautiful example of the important role journalism plays in the service of the truth.” ―Barometern “Reading Johan Anderberg’s book is not just a way to get perspective and background, detailed descriptions of how the Swedish strategy was formed and what it led to. It is also a way to be released from the debate, both in social and other media. It is extremely cooling. The Herd is no debate book; it is a nuanced report from an incredibly strange time. So strange you need help finding the words to talk about it.” ―Aftonbladet “Journalist Johan Anderberg makes a brave effort to tell the story about how Sweden chose its path through the pandemic … Anderberg’s narrative has an effortless ease that manifests itself once the writer has a clear overview, and truly masters his subject without getting sidetracked and stuck on details.” ―Sydsvenskan “Anderberg masters to perfection the societal reportage that closely examines the authorities, effortlessly taking us into the meeting rooms and email inboxes where the Swedish Corona strategy took shape. With efficiency and humor, he visualizes his protagonists … In a climate where media personalities―myself included―often acted as supporters, critics, and hobby epidemiologists, Anderberg has instead buried himself in facts and tried to paint the overall picture… Questions remain after having finished reading The Herd, but this in no way takes away the honor of having accomplished this impressive pioneering work with such energy and wit from Johan Anderberg. The Herd is sure to greatly impact the debate that we’ve only seen the nascent beginnings of so far.” ―Expressen

An award-winning kitchen classic for over 35 years, and hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn to for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. For its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment. On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped birth the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques. Among the major themes addressed throughout the new edition are: · Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food quality · The great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredients · Tips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfully · The particular substances that give foods their flavors, and that give us pleasure · Our evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foods On Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.

The final book in C.S. Lewis’s acclaimed science fiction Space Trilogy, which follows Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom. Now, the dark forces that have been repulsed in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are massed for an assault on planet Earth. Word is that the mighty wizard Merlin has come back to the land of the living after many centuries, holding the key to ultimate power for the force that can find him and bend him to its will. A sinister technocratic organization is gaining power throughout Europe, with a plan to “recondition” society, and it is up to Ransom and his friends to stop this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a new universe dominated by science. The two groups struggle to a climactic resolution that brings the Space Trilogy to a magnificent, crashing conclusion. Written during the dark hours immediately before and during World War II, C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy stands alongside such works as Albert Camus’s The Plague and George Orwell’s 1984 as a timeless classic, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of its moral concerns.

A groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality, which turns out to be the basis for religion and politics. The book is timely (explaining the American culture wars and refuting the "New Atheists"), scholarly (integrating insights from many fields) and great fun to read (like Haidt's last book, "The Happiness Hypothesis").

Good communication, conventional wisdom suggests, is calm, logical, rational. Emotions, we’re told, just get in the way. But what if this is backwards? What if those emotional overtones are the main messages we’re sending to one another, and all that logical language is just window dressing? Over billions of years of evolution, animals have become increasingly sophisticated and increasingly sentient. In the process, they evolved emotions, which helped improve their odds of survival in complex situations. These emotions were, at first, purely internal. But at some point, social animals began expressing their emotions, in increasingly dramatic ways. These emotional expressions could accurately reflect internal emotions (smiling to express happiness)—or they could be quite different (smiling to cover up that you’re actually furious, but can’t tell your boss that). Why did once-stone-faced animals evolve to be so emotionally expressive—to be us? The answer, as evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi and mathematician Tim Barber reveal, is that emotional expressions are our first and most important language—one that allows us, as social animals, to engage in highly sophisticated communications and negotiations. Expressly Human introduces an original theory that explains, from first principles, how the broad range of emotional expressions evolved, and provides a Rosetta Stone for human communication. It will revolutionize the way you see every social interaction, from deciding who gets the last slice of pizza to multimillion-dollar business negotiations, and change your definition of what makes us human.