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“The Ice House” Heats Up

The Ice House, by Laura Lee Smith, Grove Atlantic; $25.00, 448 pages.

Yes, most of the country is currently in the throes of winter’s frosty grip, but don’t let that keep you from warming up to Laura Lee Smith’s latest novel, The Ice House, which offers an unfettered look at how a Southern family deals with love, loss, redemption, and, eventually, reconciliation.

Set in Jacksonville, Florida, where the Maxwell House factory forever singes the air with the aroma of burnt coffee, Scottish transplant Johnny MacKinnon has manned the Bold City Ice factory for decades. A mysterious accident at the plant has OSHA issuing fines that may force him to shutter the business. A potential brain tumor and an estranged relationship with his grown son–a recovering heroin addict and a father in his own right–weigh heavy on Johnny’s shoulders.

Smith, Laura Lee author photo - credit Zach Thomas
Photo credit: Zach Thomas

Like Johnny’s stock in trade, hurt feelings and old wounds take time to thaw, and at 448 pages, Smith does not rush the process, but be glad for it: The Ice House is full and complex, capturing much of what fills the current cultural zeitgeist–the opioid epidemic, class conflict, and racism–injected with equal doses southern charm and wit.

Richly layered, compassionate while providing no easy solutions, Smith masterfully demonstrates that love and forgiveness can melt the chill of icy hearts.

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Toast 200 Years of “Frankenstein” at the Rosenbach’s Bibliococktail Hour

With the arrival of 2018 comes all sorts of bibliocentric events. One Philadelphia-based soirée to put on your calendar is the Rosenbach Library’s Bibliococktail hour on Friday, January 12th in honor of the 200th anniversary of the publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. (Be sure to check out Jonathan Shipley’s cover story in the winter issue of Fine Books & Collections dedicated to the bicentennial.)
Held on the second Friday of each month, the Bibliococktail series is dedicated to celebrating great literature while quaffing light libations created especially for the occasion by local distiller and distributor Quaker City Mercantile.
This 21+ event is free for Delancey Society members, and tickets (available here) start at $15 for Rosenbach members, $30 for general admission.

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Petition to Save Boston’s Old Corner Bookstore from Remaining a Chipotle

There’s change afoot along Boston’s historic Freedom Trail. Activists have launched a campaign on Change.org to convert the Old Corner Bookstore (OCB) into a museum reflecting the city’s literary history.
Constructed in 1718 on the site of Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson’s cottage at the corner of Washington and School Streets, Boston’s oldest commercial building was saved from demolition in 1960 by its current owner, Historic Boston, Inc.,which has leased out the space since 2011 to raise money for the organization’s various preservation endeavors such as the Everett Square Theater and the Malcolm X house. The OCB’s current tenant is a Chipotle Mexican Grill–not quite a bastion of literature and the impetus behind this current petition.
Sstarting in the 1840s, the OCB was the home of Ticknor & Fields, an American publisher perhaps best known for publishing H.D. Thoreau’s Walden and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, as well as work by Julia Ward Howe and Henry Longfellow. Read more over at the Fine Books Blog. 

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“Home” for the Holidays

For many of us, the next few weeks will be a flurry of holiday parties, last-minute gift runs, and the chance to see family and friends. In a bid to remember why we go through so much trouble to be with loved ones this time of year, consider picking up the third literary anthology in the Freeman’s collection entitled Home (Grove, $16). Thirty-seven writers from around the world focused on the idea of home, each bringing a new perspective and interpretation.

In the narrative nonfiction piece “Vacationland,” author Kerri Arsenault returns to her hometown of Mexico, Maine, which sits on the banks of the Androscoggin River. Now a derelict relic of a bygone era, the townspeople’s former prosperity came from toiling in the paper mill in nearby Rumford. “That’s money coming out of those smokestacks,” Arsenault’s father used to say, but there was plenty else coming out of those stacks, too–dioxin, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, and other by-products of contemporary mass-produced papermaking, slowly poisoning the surrounding environment and its inhabitants. (Read “At the Crossroads” in On Paper for a look inside the modern commercial papermaking experience.)

Read more about the idea of home over at the Fine Books Blog.

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Children’s Books Holiday Round-Up

Here’s a few of our favorite new books to give to your loved ones this holiday season:

The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith, Folio Society; $59.95, 208 pages, all ages.

Smith’s 1957 classic children’s story gets the Folio treatment in this lavish update, complete with a black and white spotted slipcover. Illustrated by award-winning Sara Ogilvie and introduced by National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson, share this special edition with someone with a soft spot for canine capers. NOTE: Order by December 14th to ensure Christmas delivery.

Read the Book, Lemmings! by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Zacharia OHora, Little, Brown & Company; $17.99, 40 pages, ages 3-6.

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While sailing in freezing waters, First Mate Foxy reads that lemmings don’t jump off cliffs, only to finding his furry shipmates doing exactly that. “Guess they didn’t read the book,” he muses. As they keep leaping into the icy drink, Foxy takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of these jumping lemmings. Dyckman’s on-point humor is perfectly matched by OHora’s retro-inspired artwork. A warm and funny look at compassion and patience that’s perfect for all ages.

The Little Reindeer, by Nicola Killen, Simon & Schuster; $15.99, 32 pages, ages 2-5.

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Just as Ollie snuggles under the covers on Christmas Eve, she’s jolted awake by the sounds of jingle bells. Away she slides on her sleigh into the snowy night, where she meets a reindeer who sweeps her up on a magical journey. The black and white palette, punctuated by pops of red and metallic silver ink, makes for a most enchanting tale about the magic of the season.

Red Again, by Barbara Lehman, HMH Book for Young Readers; $16.99, 32 pages, ages 3-7. 

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A boy discovers a red book on the side of the road. Inside it is another book where another child finds a similar book, and two worlds collide in this wordless examination of loneliness, adventure, and the never ending pleasures of storytelling. Lehman’s sequel to her 2005 Caldecott Honor winning The Red Book is sure to delight fans both old and new.

The Nutcracker Mice, by Kristin Kladstrup, illustrated by Brett Helquist, Candlewick Press; $17.99, 336 pages, ages 8-11.

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A family of mice live in Saint Petersbourg’s famous Mariinsky theater, and the little critters adore the ballet performed by both the humans and their furry cohorts, but a new ballet called the Nutcracker features mice as villains, sending the mice into distress. Meanwhile, among the humans, nine-year old Irinia, the daughter of a mouse exterminator, believes the mice she’s seen hidden at the theater may be more than just four-legged pests. Can Irina help save the Mariinsky mice from certain annihilation? Will the dancing mice make it in the ultra-competitive Russian Mouse Ballet Company? Veteran YA author Kristin Kladstrup gives The Nutcracker a delightfully whimsical origin story, and Brett Helquist’s full-page illustrations provide just the right touch of magic.

 Countdown to Christmas: A Story a Day, Disney Press; $10.99, 64 pages, ages 3-8.

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This compendium of twenty-five stories includes characters from the wide world of Disney characters, from Bambi, the Aristocats, Wall-E, and the 101 Dalmatians. Serious Disney fans may notice some stories are repeats from the Five Minute Christmas Stories, but this update will surely please fans of the Mouse on your holiday list.

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The Sherlock Holmes Collection of Dan Posnansky Goes to Auction

“I don’t think of myself as a completist, although I certainly have many thousands of Doyle things,” said collector Dan Posnansky in Nick Basbanes’ book hunting guide, Among the Gently Mad. Still, Posnansky spent over sixty years sleuthing out book stores and estate sales in search of materials relating to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and his literary detective, Sherlock Holmes. By his own account, Posnansky estimated he was in possession of roughy ten thousand volumes of all things Sherlockian.
On December 19, most of that collection is heading to auction at Calabasas-based Profiles in History and is billed as the largest single Sherlock Holmes collection to go to market. Photographs, letters, pamphlets, advertisements, commemorative objects and more will all be available at the no-reserve sale.

Perhaps the most exciting high points includes the collection of pirated editions from the late 19th century–books printed in the United States that flouted nascent and inconsistent copyright laws. Read about how Doyle himself handled these editions over on the Fine Books Blog. 

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Kitchen Work

Perhaps you already kicked off the holiday season with an impressive Halloween yard display. Others of you may consider Thanksgiving the traditional start to a seemingly never-ending buffet of open houses and cocktail parties. With that in mind, I humbly submit a little literary hors d’oeuvre: the Fall 2017 edition of Kitchen Work, a new, print-only quarterly journal focusing on what and how we eat and drink.

Read all about this tasty new treat and where to find it on the Fine Books Blog.

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Welcome Art & Object!

I am now writing regular features for the recently launched Art & Object, a website dedicated to covering the art world and the secondary art market. Current stories include a look at the Houston arts scene post-Harvey, a preview of the forthcoming Salon Art + Design Show in Manhattan, and a lot more.  Please check it out, and check back often!

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October Quick Picks

Put down the Halloween candy and grab one of these literary treats instead:

See What I have Done, by Sarah Schmidt, Grove Atlantic; $26.00, 324 pages.

Australian library coordinator-turned-novelist makes her chilling debut with a reinterpretation of the infamous story of Lizzie Borden, the Fall River, Massachusetts, native who bludgeoned her father and stepmother to death with an axe 125 years ago this past August.  Borden was tried and acquitted of the crimes, and officially, the murders remain unsolved, but Schmidt’s reexamination of the events through multiple narrators offers gruesome, cruel new perspectives on hidden family secrets.

A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Remarkable Story of an Italian Mother, her Two Sons, and their Fight against Fascism, by Caroline Moorehead, Harper; $27.99, 488 pages. 

National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction finalist Caroline Moorehead (Human Cargo) takes on another topic examining courage under oppression. Here, we meet the Rossellis, an aristocratic family opposed to fascism and Benito Mussolini’s rise to power before World War II.  Using family letters and secret police files, Moorehead recounts how the Rosselli’s dedicated their lives and resources to rebelling against Mussolini’s reign of terror, and how their courage continued to inspire opposition during the dark days of war. A vivid portrait of a country’s decent into darkness and of those who defied it.

In the Darkness of the Night, by Bruno Munari, Princeton Architectural Press; $35.00, 60 pages.

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Originally published in Italy in 1956 under the title Nella notte buia, this little masterpiece uses a full arsenal of book arts techniques to convey space and time. Rather than relying exclusively on text, author Bruno Munari (1907-1998) relies instead on symphony of words and images to convey the story. Thick paper cutouts give way to fragile transparent sheets, making for a wholly unexpected and holistic reading experience. Perfect for collectors and paper engineers alike.

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Philomena’s New Glasses

Abigail’s back with a look at another picture book starring three sister guinea pigs who learn about acquisition overload and sibling rivalry.

Philomena’s New Glasses, by Brenna Maloney, Viking; $16.99, 32 pages, ages 2-6.

Philomena the guinea pig has fuzzy vision, so she gets new glasses. But her sister Audrey thinks Philomena looks cool, so she gets glasses, too. Soon, their littlest sister, Nora Jane, gets worried–if her sisters are wearing glasses, shouldn’t she? Then, all three sisters want new purses and dresses, and instead of being happy with their things, they’re all very miserable. The author’s photographs of real guinea pigs wearing dresses are very funny, and show that it’s important for everyone–even guinea pigs–to just be themselves. Don’t skip the end pages for “deleted scenes!”

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image credit: Brenna Maloney. Used with permission from Viking Books