The Baron Fig team members usually have a book on hand, whether we’re studying to further the company, philosophizing to better understand our lives, or thumbing through something juicy just to pass the time on the morning commute. Here’s what we enjoyed in September.
Imagine that every human who ever lived, from the earliest Neanderthals to the present, is resurrected after death on the banks of an astonishing and seemingly endless river on an unknown world.
Joey: “It's about a mysterious world in which everyone who has ever lived gets resurrected on the shores of a river that seems to be infinitely long. My favorite part about it is the idea of exploring what humanity does when all of our necessities are taken care of. There are these magical grails that supply food three times a day, there's no disease, tons of resources to build shelter, and if you die then you just come back to life again. What do people do all day? Is it heaven or hell?”
Zero K, by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo’s novel weighs the darkness of the world—terrorism, floods, fires, famine, plague—against the beauty and humanity of everyday life; love, awe, ‘the intimate touch of earth and sun.
Lara: “I'm just starting Zero K by Don DeLillo right now. I'm really looking forward to it after reading White Noise and Cosmopolis over the past few years. DeLillo manages to make the dystopian worlds he creates not only eerily recognizable but endlessly provocative, even as told completely from the backseat of a car in Cosmopolis. Some light-hearted subway reading, to be sure.”
Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich
Set on and around a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation, Love Medicine is the epic story about the intertwined fates of two families: the Kashpaws and the Lamartines.
Andi: “The word “epic” gets tossed around too lightly these days if you ask me, but it’s the perfect word for this story, which reaches back through generations of family life on a Native American reservation, bringing back to the surface with it stories and voices that wash over you in echoes of heartache, beauty, and love of every kind. It’s a rich, layered tapestry of a story woven together by a masterful writer. I read it slowly because I didn’t want to miss a moment of it, and because I wanted those moments to last as long as possible.”
Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh, illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.
Adam: “I recently finished this, which was recommended to me. It's the tale of the founding of Nike from the days of him having just an idea all through the pain and efforts to build a company. Amazing that he started off selling another company's brand for many years before even starting the Nike brand. A really good story of the effort and determination it takes to build a company and lots that he/the company went through along the way.”
