Front Table 11/10/23

On This Week's Front Table, consider forms of ancient and modern power: a revisionist look at the lives of the Roman emperors, a close reading of the narratives surrounding the American health care system, and the rise and fall of a modern-day robber baron; seek wisdom in a philosophical work that asks questions about the nature of hope, trust, and forgiveness; indulge in a sumptuous facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio; and we round out our week's selections with two stunning works of fiction by contemporary masters Olga Ravn and George Saunders. 

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World
(Liveright) 
Mary Beard

In her international bestseller SPQR, Mary Beard told the thousand-year story of ancient Rome, from its slightly shabby Iron Age origins to its reign as the undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean. Now, drawing on more than thirty years of teaching and writing about Roman history, Beard turns to the emperors who ruled the Roman Empire, beginning with Julius Caesar (assassinated 44 BCE) and taking us through the nearly three centuries—and some thirty emperors—that separate him from the boy-king Alexander Severus (assassinated 235 CE).

Yet Emperor of Rome is not your typical chronological account of Roman rulers, one emperor after another: the mad Caligula, the monster Nero, the philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Instead, Beard asks different, often larger and more probing questions: What power did emperors actually have? Was the Roman palace really so bloodstained? What kind of jokes did Augustus tell? And for that matter, what really happened, for example, between the emperor Hadrian and his beloved Antinous? Effortlessly combining the epic with the quotidian, Beard tracks the emperor down at home, at the races, on his travels, even on his way to heaven.


Grow and Hide: The History of America's Health Care State
(Oxford University Press) 
Colleen M. Grogan

The US government has always invested federal, state and local dollars in public health protection and prevention. Despite this public funding, however, Americans typically believe the current system is predominantly comprised of private actors with little government interference. In Grow & Hide, Colleen M. Grogan details the history of the American health care state and argues that the public has been intentionally misled about the true role of government.

The US created a publicly financed system while framing it as the opposite in what Grogan terms the "grow-and-hide regime." Today, the state's role is larger than ever, yet it remains largely hidden because stakeholders—namely, private actors and their allies in government—have repeatedly, and successfully, presented the illusion of minimal government involvement. The consequences of this narrative are scarce accountability and a highly unequal distribution of benefits. If we want to fix care in America, we need to reimagine the way it is organized, prioritized, funded, and, perhaps most importantly, discussed. Grow & Hide is an important contribution to this reimagining.


Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon
(W.W. Norton) 
Michael Lewis 

When Michael Lewis first met him, Sam Bankman-Fried was the world’s youngest billionaire and crypto’s Gatsby. CEOs, celebrities, and leaders of small countries all vied for his time and cash after he catapulted, practically overnight, onto the Forbes billionaire list. Who was this rumpled guy in cargo shorts and limp white socks, whose eyes twitched across Zoom meetings as he played video games on the side? In Going Infinite Lewis sets out to answer this question, taking readers into the mind of Bankman-Fried, whose rise and fall offers an education in high-frequency trading, cryptocurrencies, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system. Both psychological portrait and financial roller-coaster ride, Going Infinite is Michael Lewis at the top of his game, tracing the mind-bending trajectory of a character who never liked the rules and was allowed to live by his own—until it all came undone.


Hope, Trust, and Forgiveness: Essays in Finitude
(University of Chicago Press) 
John T. Lysaker

As ethical beings, we strive for lives that are meaningful and praiseworthy. But we are finite. We do not know, so we hope. We need, so we trust. We err, so we forgive. In this book, philosopher John T. Lysaker draws our attention to the ways in which these three capacities—hope, trust, and forgiveness—contend with human limits. Each experience is vital to human flourishing, yet each also poses significant personal and institutional challenges as well as opportunities for growth. Hope, Trust, and Forgiveness explores these challenges and opportunities and proposes ways to best meet them. In so doing, Lysaker experiments with the essay as a form and advances an improvisational perfectionism to deepen and expand our ethical horizons.


Shakespeare's First Folio: 400th Anniversary Facsimile Edition: Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies, Published According to the Original Copies
(Rizzoli) 
William Shakespeare

A full-size facsimile of one of the most complete early copies of the famed First Folio, selected and luxuriously produced by the British Library, is a must-have for actors, playwrights, and bibliophiles as well as anyone who truly loves the art of the English language. The slipcased edition includes a six-page booklet with an introduction by Adrian Edwards, the British Library’s lead curator, who explains the history and enduring significance of the First Folio. First printed in 1623, the First Folio presents thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays in one volume and is the only source for eighteen of his plays. Without it, works such as The Tempest, Twelfth Night and Macbeth would be lost. 


My Work
(New Directions) 
Olga Ravn; Sophia Hersi Smith, Jennifer Russell (trans.) 

After giving birth, Anna is utterly lost. She and her family move to the unfamiliar, snowy city of Stockholm. Anxiety threatens to completely engulf the new mother, who obsessively devours online news and compulsively buys clothes she can’t afford. To avoid sinking deeper into her depression, Anna forces herself to read and write. My Work is a novel about the unique and fundamental experience of giving birth, mixing different literary forms—fiction, essay, poetry, memoir, and letters—to explore the relationship between motherhood, work, individuality, and literature.


Liberation Day
(Random House) 
George Saunders

The “best short-story writer in English” (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose—wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned—Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: Here is a collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality. Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.