Blog

February 2nd, 2024

On This Week's Front Table, explore a clear-eyed critical account of how neoliberalism has redefined resistance to thwart social movements and consolidate power; tackle head-on what happens when a deeply flawed and racist criminal legal system and...

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January 19th, 2024

 

On This Week's Front Table, examine the prison system through a compilation of writings from the American Prison Writing Archive, dive into poetry that explores brutality through the human, natural, and animal world, parse through what it means to practice a spiritual life that is predicated upon social justice and the teachings of Black leaders, and mull over a novel of verse about Indigenous families and Indigenous resistance that span over one hundred years. Explore these and more at ...

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January 12th, 2024

On This Week's Front Table interrogate the demands of of our relationship to work and how it manifests in our own life, delve into the history of dissent in the US and how it has changed over time, explore the science of awe and how it transcends our connection to the larger world, examine gripping poetry from the worldview of the Zoque people of southern Mexico, and read a devastating personal testimony from the cousin of Emmett Till  that explores memory and truth telling in contrast to our country's history of racist reporting. Explore these titles and more at ...

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January 5th, 2024

On This Week's Front Table, explore bold and fascinating depictions of cultural and personal history including the captivating and sometimes criminal history of the library, a collection of sparkling essays on the history of "the diva," a visual journey through the experience of twins, and novels from Hisham Matar, Sigrid Nunez, and K-Ming Chang. Explore these titles and more at...
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December 8th, 2023

On This Week's Front Table, dive into the holiday season with new works that explore from the farthest reaches of the universe to the smallest moments of our hidden lives. Our non-fiction selections include a buzzy new book on the secret search for alien intelligence, an intimate biography of a musical and artistic supernova, and a fresh look at ancient medicine through the lens of evolving medical technology. If something more literary is what you're after during these chilly nights, check out...

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November 29th, 2023

 

 On This Week's Front Table, consider books that experiment with transformation whether that be a study of the deep joy of everyday noises and the expansiveness of the auditory experience to a collection of transformative interviews of canonical authors put together by the owner of the beloved bookstore Shakespeare and Company,  to a story about creating a revolutionary underground society for people who have historically been marginalized to poems about the effect of...

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November 17th, 2023

On This Week's Front Table, interact with stories that explore conflicting boundaries from a collection of ghost stories that challenge the difference between the living and the dead, a pictorial essay that depicts ones relationship to the senses from an art critic who loses and gains their eyesight, an exploration of language that is shared and individualized through a set of twins that shifts between prose and poetry, and the curious backstory and duality of the...

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November 10th, 2023

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
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November 3rd, 2023

 

On This Week's Front Table, delve into stories of the every-day along with narratives of unchartered territory; whether that's through essays about every-day life from one of the masterminds of the genre, to a study of how ordinary friendships in low income communities create support networks of care,  to the often unthought of dream life of animals and it's subsequent moral implications, to combining both elements of the known and the unknown in creating an abolitionist world based on the principles of adaptation, transformation, and interdependence. Explore these titles and more at ...

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