Bookworm: September 2025
'Atmosphere,' '44 Poems on Being With Each Other,' 'Seduction Theory,' 'Soldiers and Kings'
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Happy autumn! September was busy, so I’m highlighting four titles instead of the usual five in this issue of Bookworm. Hope you were able to get some reading done this month.
Table of contents
Fiction: “Atmosphere,” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Poetry: “44 Poems on Being With Each Other,” by Padraig O Tuama
Fiction: “Seduction Theory,” by Emily Adrian
Anthropology: “Soldiers and Kings,” by Jason De Leon
“Atmosphere”
As a member of Gen X, I felt an instant pull to the cover of mega-best-selling author Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new novel, “Atmosphere.” The dark shoulder-length hair of the woman in an astronaut’s jumpsuit immediately brought to mind Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space in 1983, and Christa McAuliffe, the first American civilian to go into space through NASA’s Teacher in Space Project in 1986. I was in high school during both firsts, and they were galvanizing. Women could, indeed, do anything we wanted, it seemed.
Reid’s protagonist, Joan, is happily teaching physics and co-parenting her niece when NASA begins recruiting women astronauts. Reid’s timeline is reminiscent of Ride’s: Joan is tapped for space shuttle training in 1980 and has been in orbit by 1983. She’s moved to a role at Mission Control by 1984, when the book begins.
Joan’s coming-of-age journey is about more than joining the super-elite club of space travelers. The novel’s subtitle is “A Love Story,” and the romance, too, takes a page from Ride’s life. People magazine reported in June that Ride gave her partner, writer Tam O’Shaughnessy, permission to disclose their 27-year same-sex relationship just days before dying of cancer.
I initially felt as if “Atmosphere” was moving in slow fits and starts, but it was really more of a slow burn. Like the space shuttle, Joan sheds first one stage of her identity, then another, until she finds herself at a new altitude, ready to launch a new life.
“44 Poems on Being With Each Other”
Wine and poetry intimidate me. When I’m tasting wine, I typically miss the notes of cherry or leather or whatever else is supposed to be going on in the glass. Similarly, when I’m reading poetry, I typically miss the references and symbolisms and intentions unless the poet obligingly hits me over the head with them.
So I appreciated Padraig O Tuama’s “44 Poems On Being With Each Other” for its highly accessible approach and presentation. This is not O Tuama’s original work but an anthology of short poems by others that he’s curated. He introduces each poem with a brief anecdote or reflection, then follows it with his analysis and interpretation. Reading this book felt like taking a poetry class with a sympathetic professor who understood that while some of us might be well versed in the field, others might approach these pages tentatively.
O Tuama deftly mixes iconic poets (Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, Mary Oliver, Joy Harjo) with those less familiar but no less talented. I was drawn right into Eugenia Leigh’s “How the Dung Beetle Finds Its Way Home” and Wendy Cope’s “The Orange,” for example. There’s lots more to relate to in this welcome collection about how we relate to one another.
“Seduction Theory”
Ah, the campus novel. How it loves to burst the perception of a college or university as a hub of pure academic pursuit, noble causes and disinterested advocacy. In Emily Adrian’s latest novel, “Seduction Theory,” the pursuit is carnal, the causes are id and ego, and the narrator is highly unreliable.
Simone and Ethan, spouses who work at a fictional university with a distinct Ivy League vibe, have what they consider the ideal marriage. She’s a celebrated memoirist; he’s a less successful novelist. When each of them finds temptation lying in their path one summer, they’re simultaneously fascinated and revolted by its pull. And Simone’s graduate student, Robbie, who’s a key ingredient in this brewing marital crisis, sees opportunity — of the MFA thesis kind.
Kudos to whoever came up with the title of this novel. I enjoyed imagining Simone and Ethan striving to view and analyze their situation through an intellectual lens even as emotion fogs their perspective. Then along comes Robbie, ready to reveal everything. Whose narrative will win out?
“Soldiers and Kings”
Anthropologist Jason De Leon spent seven years doing fieldwork in a subculture that’s had an outsized impact on our country: the subculture of people (almost all young men) who scrape together their livings by guiding desperate individuals and families across Central and North American borders. But his resulting book, “Soldiers and Kings,” is no academic tome. It reads very much like a novel, as he pulls his readers deep inside the lives and minds of his subjects.
From the outset, De Leon makes it clear that this book is not about human trafficking, whose victims have no agency. Human smuggling, he writes, requires willing, if exploited, participation. Next, he distinguishes between coyotes, whom I came to think of as middle managers, and guias, the rank-and-file doing the actual work and taking the life-and-death risks. Finally, he notes that he was always clear with his subjects about who he was and why he wanted to interview and observe them. He also kept his distance from the people who were being smuggled.
No one grows up aspiring to be a guia. It’s a chance to make a few extra pesos that becomes a few more chances that become a way of life. As borders harden not only between the U.S. and Mexico but also between Mexico and other countries, notably Honduras, the guias face diminishing returns and increasing danger, particularly as gangs get involved in human smuggling. Some guias try to get into the U.S. themselves; some just try to get into another line of work. In either case, the odds are stacked against them. Still, they press on, borne ceaselessly along with the tide of humanity pushing north.
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Happy reading!
ATMOSPHERE was one of my favorite reads last year. Then I went on to binge four more of Taylor Jenkin Reeds' books! I enjoyed SEDUCTION THEORY as well. :D
I’m a Boomer so for me, more about the space shuttle and less romance would have improved the story. But I enjoyed the book.