Blog

February 10th, 2025

On this week’s Front Table, explore humanity’s evolution, the power of beauty standards, and feminist resistance in Mexico. Then, follow two friends chasing dreams in 1999 New York, examine the case for Black reparations through a rigorous, multidisciplinary lens, and confront the legacy of five Sámi children taken from their families. Finally, uncover ancient Greco-Roman wisdom on diet, health, and daily life. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com


Sapiens [Tenth Anniversary Ed]: A Brief History of Humankind
(Harper Perennial)
Yuval Noah Harari

Sapiens explores the history of humankind, tracing...

Posted in: Front Table
January 29th, 2025

 On this week’s Front Table, explore the history and elegance of mathematics, the complexities of unrequited love, and the function of memorials. Discover the Buddhist teaching of "no-self," and an unnerving story of two men in a insolated lighthouse. Dive into the complicated journey of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a poetry collection blurring the line between mythology and modernity. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com.  


The Language of Mathematics
(Princeton University Press)
Raul Rojas...

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January 27th, 2025

On this week’s Front Table, explore attraction, love, sex and revolution. Discover a short intro into feminist philosophy and why we should be hopefully pessimistic in a breaking world. Dive into a fever dream in 1519 Mexico City, a portrait of queer Black masculinity, and a a city run and managed by AI. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com
 

Attraction, Love, Sex
(Columbia University Press)
Simon LeVay

Sex, after hunger, may be the most powerful motivating force in our lives. It drives us to seek...

Posted in: Front Table
January 16th, 2025

On this week’s Front Table, explore the latest edition to the Stormlight Archives, the connection between three suicides and a surreal landscape where reality is as fluid as a river. Discover a short intro into authoritarian regimes and the philosophical concept of oneness. Dive into a celebration of bibiophilia and a critique of bibliomania and the connection with inner stillness and joy found at a monastery. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com


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Posted in: Front Table
January 9th, 2025

On this week’s Front Table, explore a collection of illuminating interviews with notable figures, the enduring and ever-evolving relevance of Milton's epic poem, and a theory of Austen's view of a future beyond the cisheteronormative binary. Discover Buzzati's alternative realities and the history of monastic life. Dive into a touchstone narrative of lesbian adolescence and a mystery of two men looking for gold and one destined for death. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com


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Posted in: Front Table
January 5th, 2025

In this week’s Front Table, explore the multi-faceted and sometimes contradictory nature of the world's most famous scientist, Paul McCartney's legacy beyond Beatlemania, and the emperors who ruled the Roman Empire over three centuries. Rediscover Giroux's call for radical social change in society and education and a newly translated philosophical novel about the nature of consciousness. Dive into a family saga in 20th century Lebanon and the vast variety of colors in loss and rejuvenation. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com


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Posted in: Front Table
December 30th, 2024

On this week’s Front Table, explore the hidden poems of a major 20th-century thinker, the resilience of a Black family overcoming injustice, and a satirical novel mocking literary vanity. Discover a bold, vulnerable collection on identity and survival, dive into E.B. White’s reflections on New York, and experience urgent poetry capturing the human spirit amid conflict. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com
 

What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt
(Liveright)
Hannah Arendt; Samantha Rose Hill and...

Posted in: Front Table
December 23rd, 2024

On this week’s Front Table, reflect on the contradiction between “wokeness” and the benefits derived from inequality and dive into the literary history of trolling. Learn how political instability has fueled global capitalism and walk through meditations of the spiritual life of Thoreau. Explore the shifting borders of Ukraine through poetry, journey to Mycenae and follow a retired professors’ caffeine fueled journey to finish his life’s work. Find these titles and more at...

Posted in: Front Table
December 16th, 2024

On this week’s Front Table, dive into the legacy of a legendary Hollywood director, and reflect on faith and despair in a poetic memoir. Discover a chilling dystopian world where elite students face tough choices, learn about the lasting trauma of Japanese American incarceration, and enjoy vibrant new African poetry. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com


George Cukor's People: Acting for a Master Director 
(Columbia University Press)
Joseph McBride

George...

Posted in: Front Table
December 9th, 2024

On this week’s Front Table, take a surprising journey into the world of two great Modernist poets and the interests that connected them, study what made George Batailleone one of the most provocative and controversial writers of his time, and explore the question: "How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash?" with a witty and tender novel. Then, regard our culture's need for excess and consumption not with guilt but with grace and empathy, take a closer look at Evangelical Christians and why they are perhaps the most polarizing--and least understood--people living in America today, and enjoy a thrilling and eccentric novel about what it means to make art as a woman, and about the powerful forces of voyeurism, power, obsession, and online performance. Find these titles and more at...

Posted in: Front Table