/data/universe/

Hmm, looks like I missed a couple of years there… something must have come up. Previous editions.

The Premonition
Michael Lewis
A prehistory of the Covid-19 pandemic that makes clear the importance as well as the invisibility of public health.

Raising Raffi
Keith Gessen
A series of connected essays from a (frustrated, exasperated, confused, loving) middle-aged literary dad, about the first five years of his eldest son’s life.

Liftoff
Eric Berger
An early history of SpaceX, from its founding to the first successful flight of the Falcon One.

The Scout Mindset
Julia Galef
Practical strategies for avoiding self-deception.

The Right Stuff
Tom Wolfe
This classic documents the changing culture of the test pilot fraternity in the late 50s and early 60s as the leading edge of aerospace shifted from Chuck Yeager and rocket planes at Edwards Air Force Base to the Mercury astronauts.

The Broken Heart of America: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States
Walter Johnson
A work of radical history that traces how St. Louis served as prototype and exemplar for a racialized capitalism of removal and extraction.

Diary of a Very Bad Year: Confessions of an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager
Keith Gessen
A series of funny, lucid interviews with a hedge fund manager during the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath.