Front Table Newsletter 7/15

Every Living Thing : The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
(Random House Trade Paperbacks)
Jason Roberts

In the eighteenth century, two men dedicated their lives to identifying and describing all life on Earth. Both fell far short of their goal, but in the process they articulated starkly divergent views on nature, the future of the Earth, and humanity itself. Linnaeus gave the world such concepts as mammal, primate, and Homo sapiens, but he also denied that species change and he promulgated racist pseudoscience. Buffon formulated early prototypes of evolution and genetics, warned of global climate change, and argued passionately against prejudice. The clash of their conflicting worldviews continued well after their deaths, as their successors contended for dominance in the emerging science that came to be called biology. In Every Living Thing, Jason Roberts weaves a sweeping, unforgettable narrative spell to trace an arc of insight and discovery that extends across three centuries into the present day.

A Billion Butterflies : A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory
(St. Martin's Press)
Dr. Jagadish Shukla

Renowned climate scientist Dr. Jagadish Shukla is largely to thank for modern weather forecasting. Shukla grew up amid turmoil: overwhelming monsoons, devastating droughts, and unpredictable crop yields. His drive brought him to the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, despite little experience. He then followed an unlikely path to MIT and Princeton, and the highest echelons of climate science. His work, which has enabled us to predict weather farther into the future than previously thought possible, allows us to feed more people, save lives, and hold on to hope in a warming world. Paired with his philanthropic endeavors and extreme dedication to the field, Dr. Shukla has been lauded internationally for his achievements, including a shared Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore for his governmental research on climate change. A Billion Butterflies is a wondrous insider's account of climate science and an unbelievable memoir of his life.

How We Grow Up : Understanding Adolescence
(Mariner Books)
Matt Richtel

The transition from childhood to adulthood is a natural, evolution-honed cycle that now faces radical change and challenge. The adolescent brain, sculpted for this transition over eons of evolution, confronts a modern world that creates so much social pressure as to regularly exceed the capacities of the evolving mind. The problem comes as a bombardment of screen-based information pelts the brain just as adolescence is undergoing a second key change: puberty is hitting earlier. The result is a neurological mismatch between an ultra-potent environment and a still-maturing brain that can lead to anxiety, depression, and other mental health challenges. It is a crisis that is part of modern life but can only be truly grasped through a broad, grounded lens of the biology of adolescence itself. Richtel, diving deeply into new research and gripping personal stories, offers accessible, scientifically grounded answers to the most pressing questions about generational change.

The Chile Project : The Story of the Chicago Boys and the Downfall of Neoliberalism
(Princeton University Press)
Sebastian Edwards

The Chile Project is a behind-the-scenes history of the spread and consequences of the free-market thinking that dominated economic policymaking around the world in the second half of the twentieth century. In 1955, the U.S. State Department launched the "Chile Project" to train Chilean economists at the University of Chicago, home of the libertarian Milton Friedman. After General Augusto Pinochet overthrew socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, Chile's "Chicago Boys" implemented the purest neoliberal model in the world for the next seventeen years, undertaking a sweeping package of privatization and deregulation, creating a modern capitalist economy, and sparking talk of a "Chilean miracle." But under the veneer of success, a profound dissatisfaction with the vast inequalities caused by neoliberalism was growing. The Chile Project provides an important new perspective on the history of neoliberalism and its global decline today.

Mina's Matchbox
(Vintage)
Yoko Ogawa; Stephen B. Snyder (trans.)

In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home--and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company--are symbols of that status. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, a precocious, asthmatic girl of thirteen who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling. Behind the family's sophistication are complications that Tomoko struggles to understand--her uncle's mysterious absences, her great-aunt's experience of the Second World War, her aunt's misery. Rich with the magic and mystery of youthful experience, Mina's Matchbox is an evocative snapshot of a moment frozen in time--and a striking depiction of a family on the edge of collapse.

The River is Waiting
(S&S/Marysue Rucci Books)
Wally Lamb

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

Creation Lake
(Scribner)
Rachel Kushner

Creation Lake is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics and clean beauty who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to her lover, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian she has met by "cold bump"--making him believe the encounter was accidental. Sadie operates by strategy and dissimulation, based on what her "contacts"--shadowy figures in business and government--instruct. Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who believes that the path to emancipation is not revolt but a return to the ancient past. Just as Sadie is certain she's the seductress and puppet master of those she surveils, Bruno is seducing her with his ingenious counter-histories, his artful laments, his own tragic story.