Front Table Newsletter 3/17

 On this week’s Front Table, explore a musician’s journey to self-definition, an office worker’s quiet rebellion, and the hidden cost of our distracted age. Trace a family’s legacy through glass and secrecy, witness a woman’s radical escape from convention, and uncover the forces shaping a city in flux. Finally, dive into a lyrical meditation on faith, longing, and the unknown. Find these titles and more at semcoop.com. 

The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir
(Grand Central Publishing)
Neko Case

Neko Case, one of music’s most influential artists, brings her signature candor and wit to The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, a memoir tracing her unlikely rise to fame. Growing up in rural Washington, she was an invisible girl “raised by two dogs and a space heater,” finding solace in nature and music. With luminous, sharp-edged prose, Case explores the loneliness of childhood, the power of camaraderie, and the transformative force of art. Her story is both a rebellious meditation on identity and a reflection on the corruption that shapes our world. Ultimately, this memoir is a manifesto on carving out space for ourselves, no matter the obstacles.

Counterattacks at Thirty: A Novel 
(HarperVia)
Won-pyung Sohn; Sean Lin Halbert (trans.)

Jihye has always been ordinary, quietly enduring office politics and the rigid bureaucracy of her administrative job at the Academy. She’s mastered the silent eye-roll and the strategic coffee run, always one misplaced email away from disaster. But her quiet existence is shaken when a bold new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives. With a small group of allies, they begin staging minor acts of rebellion—graffiti, egg-throwing, and anonymous exposés—against their superiors. As their protests escalate, Jihye and her colleagues discover not just the thrill of defiance, but the deep bonds of friendship and the power of unity against oppression.
 

The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource 
(Penguin Press)
Chris Hayes

We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive pull of the wrong things for too long. Chris Hayes argues that we are living through a massive shift, where attention has become a commodified resource, much like labor in the nineteenth century. Tech companies have dismantled the boundary between public and private, creating a world where our deepest impulses are manipulated for profit. The Sirens' Call offers a sweeping vision of this transformation, revealing how our neurological and social instincts are being exploited. Hayes provides the clarity we need to reclaim our focus, our politics, and ultimately, our humanity.


Glassworks 
(Bloomsbury Publishing)
Olivia Wolfgang-Smith

In 1910, Agnes Carter sacrifices her independence for a disastrous marriage, falling under the control of an abusive, reckless husband. When glassblower Ignace Novak rekindles her passion for science, she begins plotting a new life—one that comes at a cost. The consequences of her choices ripple through generations: her son Edward wrestles with faith and art, his child Novak scales Manhattan skyscrapers while entangled in a Broadway star’s struggle, and in 2015, Flip, a disillusioned stoner, seeks to break the family’s cycle of secrecy. Spanning over a century, this novel weaves together ambition, identity, and the weight of inherited pasts. As Flip searches for a legacy she can embrace, she discovers how history shapes and binds us all.


Lolly Willowes: Or, The Loving Huntsman 
(Modern Library)
Sylvia Townsend Warner

Laura "Lolly" Willowes is an unmarried, middle-aged woman in early-twentieth-century London--a spinster who has lived with, and in service of, her brother's overbearing family for the past twenty years. With her brother's children now grown and out of the house, Lolly shocks her family by making a choice for herself: to move, alone, to the English countryside. Once she arrives, Lolly carves out a life in this lush and wild land, finding independence and peace that she has never before experienced. Unfortunately, the family can't quite let go of Lolly, and her nephew shows up unannounced to move in with her. So long ruled by her family's wishes, Lolly makes a rash decision, turning to the Devil himself to solve her problems. With a subversive wit, Sylvia Townsend Warner poses the question: What would a woman do to ensure her freedom?


The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City 
(MCD)
Alexis Madrigal

In The Pacific Circuit, award-winning journalist Alexis Madrigal crafts a rich portrait of Oakland, a city at the heart of 21st-century transformations. Blending social and political history with investigative depth, he explores how Silicon Valley’s rise and the digital revolution have reshaped local communities. Through the lives of dockworkers, activists, developers, and tech moguls, Madrigal examines the lasting scars of systemic segregation and the unchecked march of innovation. He delves into city hall politics, the flow of venture capital, and the hidden forces shaping our economy. Oakland’s untold stories reveal a larger truth—how power, technology, and profit collide to define the modern world.


Kitchen Hymns 
(Copper Canyon Press)
Pádraig Ó Tuama

Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Kitchen Hymns begins with a question—“Do You Believe in God?”—but finds its answers in language rather than faith. Structured like a ghost mass, the collection explores longing, survival, and the spaces between belief and doubt. Jesus and Persephone converse at the gates of Hell, hares carry messages between worlds, and birds become more certain than faith itself. Shifting between humor, lament, rage, and praise, these poems address an ever-changing "you"—a lover, a stranger, a force of creation and destruction. With finely honed melodies and sharp conviction, Kitchen Hymns reckons with emptiness and finds meaning in the body, not the question.