Open Stacks

At times of uncertainty, books of anxiety abound, but the question of how to write the unknown is always in flux. Enter a state of incomprehension on this week's Front Table, with books that can help us keep sight of our fears, from life after climate change to the Isle of Sky in Virgina Woolf's To the Lighthouse.

What might 4th century BC philosopher Aristotle and 20th century celebrity chef Julia Child have to say to each other and to us? We're in dialogue with renowned classicist Edith Hall, author of Aristotle's Way, and The New Yorker's James Beard Award-winning roving food correspondent Helen Rosner on how ancient wisdom, practical advice, and a decided lack of elitism are key ingredients for eating and living well. Plus, a dash of good taste (and advice) in books our staff live by.

Spring is in the air and selections from the Co-op's Moms, Dads, Grads & Kids 2019 Gift Guide (https://www.semcoop.com/category/moms-dads-grads) are on the Front Table for all of your spring season's holidays and special occasions. Co-op Assistant Manager Alena Jones takes us in and beyond the guide for a reader's look at MOTHERHOOD and other books expanding on our notions and misconceptions of mothering just in time for Mother's Day.

Thanks for reading and listening with us on this week's Front Table from the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago. Browse each week's Front Table and subscribe to our free weekly email newsletter at semcoop.com for more serious books for curious readers. "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." This, legend has it, was the first blurb, or brief book description, to appear in 1856 courtesy of Ralph Waldo Emerson in praise of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. This week, we cover the long and short of blurbs, calling out to us from the Co-op's Front Table, with Seminary Co-op Assistant Manager Alena Jones.

Open Stacks returns with historian Pamela Toler on women for whom battle was not a metaphor, while positing the use of story in shaping shared history. Meanwhile, feminist-vegan advocate Carol J. Adams deconstructs the narrative surrounding hamburgers and other animal sourced foods and how eating, like reading, is always political. Plus, Co-op booksellers weigh in on the glut, guilt, and glory of biting off more than most readers can chew when it comes to ARCs (aka, advance reader copies).

Forgotten, no good, or simply on sale? Seminary Co-op Assistant Manager Alena Jones looks past the Front Table for books of great value: what remains (and why) when books of value get marked down. Browse each week's Front Table at semcoop.com.

From autobiography to music criticism, poet, essayist, and cultural critic Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib walks the floor of the Seminary Co-op in conversation with the books that served as muses of his love letter to A Tribe Called Quest, Go Ahead in the Rain. Oral historian and civil rights activist Timuel D. Black, Jr. shares his long-awaited memoir, Sacred Ground.

This week, Seminary Co-op Assistant manager Alena Jones picks up the radical feminism of Andrea Dworkin and three new translations by women of classical works by men. Browse each week's Front Table at semcoop.com.

Poet Eileen Myles joins us in the stacks to discuss writing EVOLUTION: their new collection of essays and poems, reading in good company, and "trying so hard to be in this world." Co-op Booksellers weigh in on the art and "gentle madness" of collecting books.