Patrick D. Hahn's 3 favorite reads in 2026

• 2025
• 2026

'A horrific story superbly told' - Irish Times

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks meets Get Out in this landmark investigation of entrenched racism at the core of the heart transplant race.

In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia's top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart stolen out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying racism surrounding Tucker's death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family's permission or… show more.

The dramatic race to transplant the first human heart spanned two years, three continents and five cities against a backdrop of searing tension, scientific brilliance, ethical controversy, racial strife and emotional turmoil. It culminated in a terrifying moment in the early hours of 3 December 1967 when, in a cramped operating theatre in a Cape Town hospital, Professor Chris Barnard stared into an empty cavity from which he had just removed a heart. He knew that he had only minutes left to make history and save the life of a 55-year-old man by filling the gaping hole in his chest… show more.

Latitude is a gloriously exciting tale of adventure and scientific discovery that has never been told before.

Crane, the former president of the Royal Geographic Society, documents the remarkable expedition undertaken by a group of twelve European adventurer-scientists in the mid-eighteenth century. The team spent years in South America, scaling volcanoes and traversing jungles before they achieved their goal of establishing the exact shape of the Earth by measuring the length of 1 degree latitude at the equator.

Their endeavors were not limited to this one achievement. Not only did their discovery open up the possibility for safe, accurate… show more.