Front Table 5/26/23

On This Week's Front Table, love, sex, and death. Also, math. From the autobiography of a legend to a study of the seven days that rule our lives, find what you weren't looking for in this week's selections. Browse these and more at semcoop.com. 

You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir
(Atria/One Signal Publishers)
Maggie Smith 

In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she's known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself.

The Age of Guilt: The Super-Ego in the Online World
(Yale University Press)
Mark Edmundson 

In The Age of Guilt, Mark Edmundson explores How Freud's concept of the super-ego can help us to understand the harsh cultural climate of the digital age. Edmundson traces the destructive passion of the super-ego on politics, race, gender, class, education, and more, drawing on psychological studies, classroom experience, and the work of Adam Phillips and Slavoj Zizek. 

The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are
(David M. Henkin)
Yale University Press 

In The Week David Henken investigates the evolution of the seven-day week and how our attachment to its rhythms influences how we live. Reconstructing how weekly patterns insinuated themselves into the social practices and mental habits of Americans, Henkin argues that The Week is more than just a regimen of rest days or breaks from work, but a dominant organizational principle of modern society. 

Geometry of Grief: Reflections on Mathematics, Loss, and Life
(University of Chicago Press)
Michael Frame 

In Geometry of Grief, mathematician Michael Frame investigates grief as a response to an irrevocable change in circumstance. Interweaving original illustrations, clear introductions to advanced topics in geometry, and wisdom gleaned from his own experience with illness and others' remarkable responses to devastating loss, Frame's poetic book is a journey through the beautiful complexities of mathematics and life. 

You Have a Friend in 10A: Stories
(Vintage)
Maggie Shipstead

From the Booker Prize nominee and New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle, a piercing, irresistible, “immersive” (The New York Times) first collection of short stories exquisite in their craft and audacious in their range. Rich in imagination and dazzling in its shapeshifting style, You Have a Friend in 10A excavates the complexities of love, sex, and life in ways unsparing and hilarious, sharp-eyed and tender.


Angela Davis: An Autobiography
(Haymarket Books)
Angela Y. Davis

This beautiful new edition of Angela Davis's classic Autobiography features an expansive new introduction by the author. Angela Davis has been a political activist at the cutting edge of the Black Liberation, feminist, queer, and prison abolitionist movements for more than 50 years. First published and edited by Toni Morrison in 1974, An Autobiography is a powerful and commanding account of her early years in struggle. 


Attraction, Love, Sex: The Inside Story
(Columbia University Press)
Simon LeVay 

In Attraction, Love, Sex renowned sex researcher Simon LeVay asks: Why do humans have sex? What happens in the brain when we're getting it on? How do 'kinks' develop? What is love? And many other topics—some frivolous, some tragically serious—all studied by fearless but fallible researchers. LeVay distills vast expertise on the biology and psychology of sex into an engaging and easy-to-understand survey with scientific acumen, a critical eye, and a sense of humor. This book reveals how scientists are unraveling the secrets of sex and, in the process, shattering many traditional ideas and prejudices.