Hal LaCroix discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Hal LaCroix lives outside Boston with his wife, Elahna. He has worked as a journalist at newspapers in New England, a reporter and editor at Harvard Medical School, a conservation writer for non-profits and an instructor at Boston University. Here and Beyond is his first novel, which is available at https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/here-and-beyond-9781526678249/.

1. Senator Charles Sumner. Sumner was a mid-19th century senator with laser focus on one issue: slavery. He had a profound impact on Lincoln, pushing him to expand rights of African Americans after emancipation. Sumner became epic villain in Confederacy, where souvenir canes commemorated the beating were hot items.

2. Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. Fuji is sacred, a symbol of Japan. The 36 mostly long-range views, all around the compass, provide a wraparound view of Japanese life in 1831.

3. Exoplanets. More than 5,000 have been confirmed so far, out of hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way galaxy. Until the 1990s no one even knew if there were any planets outside our solar system!

4. Wingspan. This is a board game about birds that my wife and I are a bit obsessed with. Each player has a board with forest, grassland and water habitats.

5. Boston Cream Pie and Boston Cream Donuts. My grandfather used to bring cakes and pies when he visited us on Cape Cod. He’d pull up in his Oldsmobile Cutlass with all these white boxes tied with string from Montilio’s bakery.

6. We Need a Global, Unifying Mission. We live on a planet with 8.2 billion people and the vast majority of us just know our neighborhood, our route back and forth to work. But on the spinning ark ship in Here and Beyond, the entire world is visible within the sphere. You look up and see buildings upside down, people upside down.

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Peter Lamont discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Peter Lamont is a research fellow at the University of Edinburgh, working on the history, theory and performance of magic. He is a magician, Member of The Magic Circle, and a former president of the Edinburgh Magic Circle. He has performed and lectured across the world. His new book is Radical Thinking, which is available at https://swiftpress.com/book/radical-thinking/

1. The Radical Road https://www.cockburnassociation.org.uk/history-blogs/edinburghs-radical-road-its-history-its-uncertain-future/
2. Encyclopaedia Britannica (2nd edition) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica_Second_Edition
3. Daniel Dunglas Home https://www.otislibrarynorwich.org/2024/01/04/daniel-dunglas-home/
4. The original Self-help book https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v26/n04/peter-mandler/gold-out-of-straw
5. Alternative points of view https://ajehrenberg.medium.com/the-importance-of-alternative-perspectives-cac0f447737b
6. The past https://www.mooc.org/blog/why-is-it-important-to-study-history

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Sarah Stein Lubrano discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Sarah Stein Lubrano holds a PhD from the University of Oxford and a Master’s degree from the University of Cambridge. Her thinking often reaches the public through the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. She was previously the Head of Content at The School of Life, tutored in prisons and wrote obituaries. She regularly appears on public radio and a variety of podcasts. Her book Don't Talk About Politics is available at https://linktr.ee/donttalkaboutpolitics.

1. Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-a-novel-set-entirely-in-slack
2. The game Billionaires and Guillotines https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745398808/billionaires-and-guillotines/
3. Looking at other people's algorithms https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-algorithms/
4. The play Sancho and Me by Paterson Joseph https://www.sanchoproductions.co.uk/
5. The band Japanese house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Japanese_House
6. Cooperation Town https://cooperation.town/

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