Book Review: All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

All new parents are familiar with the plethora of parenting books on the market. From the moment of announcing a pregnancy, family and friends will recommend, or even present you with, the "best" books on the subject. You may buy some yourself. You may even read them. And you will find yourself following some set of rules set out by a highly qualified professional only to discover that they don't quite apply to your child or your family or that some other highly qualified professional disagrees with everything you're doing. And that's small, compared to the judgments of family members, friends, strangers, and yourself on your parenting choices.

What I love about All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, by Jennifer Senior, is that it is not a book about how to parent - it is about what it means to be a parent. It is about all of that pressure we put on ourselves and that we find in our culture, from books, blogs, news programs, talk shows, and the people around us. It is about the effects of parenthood on a generation of people who have started families later in life than their parents and grandparents and therefore find the sudden disruption in their lives all the more jarring. It is about the uncertain nature of being a parent in a culture in which we are expected to excel both at work and at home (and this applies to both women and men), without any societal support or historical model for accomplishing this. It is about how parenthood changes your marriage and how men and women can find themselves at odds over raising their children and managing their household.

This might all sound like All Joy and No Fun paints a bleak picture of parenthood, which is not accurate. Throughout this book, you will find evidence and reminders of the incredible joys that do come with children. However, the truth is that there are tremendous challenges that come along with those joys. Sometimes, those challenges are overwhelming and even isolating. If I could recommend this book with only one line, it would be this: This book will reassure you that you are not alone in your experiences.

Jennifer Senior is a parent herself, but she rarely brings in her personal experiences, instead drawing on numerous studies and books, as well as several in-depth observations and interviews she conducted with other parents during her research. Far from making the book less personal, her compassion for the people she meets is apparent. One excerpt, in particular - from the chapter on marriage - has stuck with me:

"...Clint, who works at a desk, says he finds work more challenging. 'I had to learn how to be a manager,' he says. 'I'm held to someone else's standard. Whereas here at home, I am the standard. I feel like I do it the way it should be done.'
Angie, meanwhile, says she never knows if she's doing things the way they ought to be done. When asked if she's a good mother, her answer is one word: 'Sometimes.'
She's wrong. Angie's a great mother. If she could just say, 'I am the standard,' maybe she would breathe."

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, published by Ecco, is available in hardcover for $26.99.

Staff Picks Highlighted : Brett's Shelf

  

Summer is a great time to read!  Winter is nice beside the woodstove, but there’s also nothing like reading after a vigorous day in the garden or swimming in a spring-fed lake.  Akhil Sharma’s Family Life is hands-down one of the best novels I’ve read in years.  Utterly unsentimental, written in beautiful and economic prose, this novel is a gem nine years in the writing.  

Jeffrey Lent’s In the Fall remains one of my favorite novels, and certainly what I would call the quintessential Vermont novel.  Steeped in history, love of landscape, and deftly written, this novel has depth and beauty like few others.  I would love to read this novel for the first time again.  

Nathaniel Philbrick’s Why Read Moby-Dick inspired me to read Moby-Dick again.  Philbrick, of Mayflower fame, has written a little book to accompany a very large book, and whether you read the large book or not, Philbrick’s little one is a pleasure for any lover of literature.  On the subject of classics, I’d like to put in a plug for our growing shelf of classic literature in the fiction section.  Many of this novels – Grapes of Wrath, Jane Eyre, Lolita – have already generated so much discussion in the bookstore.  Of particular interest to me was the Bronte versus Austen debate.

Don’t let this pristine and lovely summer pass by without reading poetry.  Vermont’s David Budbill writes,

Summer’s here and we can hike the peaks again,

have lunch on the mountaintops, look down

on the backs of circling hawks and laze away

the afternoon watching blue-hazy, distant hills.

Budbill’s poems capture the grit and beauty of living in these mountains.  While We’ve Still Got Feet is one of a number of Budbill’s books in the Galaxy.  Janisse Ray’s A House of Branches is a fine book of poetry, but I especially want to point readers to her last poem in the collection, “Courage,” with a loon metaphor.  

Last, let me put in a word for various works of literature well-worth the read:  for fiction, Laxness’s Icelandic novel Independent People, True Grit, Love in the Time of Cholera, The Road, and Catch-22. For non-fiction aficionados, Beyond the Beautiful Forevers, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Brain on Fire.  My fifteen-year-old daughter is reading Twelve Years a Slave and my nine-year-old daughter Roald Dahl.  How’s that for diversity?  Come in and share your own favorites.  We’re always happy to hear what people are reading!

Em and the Big Hoom

The Galaxy gals who have read this book have loved this book.  You might, too.

From the inside jacket:  "Meet Imelda and Augustine, or—as our young narrator calls his unusual parents—Em and the Big Hoom. Most of the time, Em smokes endless beedis and sings her way through life. She is the sun around which everyone else orbits. But as enchanting and high-spirited as she can be, when Em’s bipolar disorder seizes her she becomes monstrous, sometimes with calamitous consequences for herself and others. This accomplished debut is graceful and urgent, with a one-of-a-kind voice that will stay with readers long after the last page."

From Kiran Desai, winner of the Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award for The Inheritance of Loss:  "Pinto chases the elusive portrait of a mother who simply said of herself that she was mad.  As I read the novel, that also portrays a very tender marriage and the life of a Goan family in Bombay, it drowned me.  I mean that in the best way.  It plunged me into a world so vivd and capricious, that when I finished, I found something had shifted and changed within myself.  This is a world of magnified and dark emotion.  The anger is a primal force, the sadness wild and raw.  Against this, the jokes are hilarious, reckless, free falling...  This is a rare, brilliant book, one that is wonderfully different from any other that I have read coming out of India."  Or anywhere else I would add.

And finally, from Salman Rushdie:  "A beautiful book... Full of love, pain, and accountably, much wild comedy."

Staff Picks Highlighted: Sandy's Shelf

I think that I was first introduced to the term "weird fiction" through Neil Gaiman's blog, which isn't surprising, as his novels fit right into that category. What's weird fiction? Well, my understanding of the genre is that it helps to classify fiction that has elements of the supernatural and/or of fantasy, sci-fi, or horror, but doesn't fit neatly under any of those labels. Looking over my staff picks shelf recently, I realized that I have a lot of weird fiction in the mix.

Last year, The Golem and the Jinni captured my heart, with its combination of history and fantasy, and I have recommended it to many readers without one being disappointed in this excellent story. The City and the City, by China Mieville is another fascinating read, in which the murder mystery that drives the plot is almost secondary to the world in which two cities are layered, sharing the same space but unable to interact. Neil Gaiman, of course, makes several appearances on my shelf, including my top Gaiman novel, Neverwhere, an Alice in Wonderland styled tale in which an average fellow is drawn into the strange and sometimes darkly magical world of "London Below."

A Tale for the Time Being could be called literary fiction, but some hints of supernatural forces at work place it on the outer edges of weird fiction. Contemplation of Buddhist teachings and meditation give the reader even more to think about in this story of two women separated in time and place but brought together by the pages of a journal that washes ashore on a small Canadian island.

While I don't limit my reading to the fantastical, I definitely lean more toward fiction than non-fiction, and if you ask me to recommend my current favorite novel, I might hand you The Tilted World, which just came out in paperback. This prohibition-era novel brings together great writing, great characters, and a plot that mounts in tension alongside the rising waters of the Mississippi River.


I might also point you toward Amy Falls Down if you're looking for a humorous read, or The Rosie Project for a bit of light reading with some romance for the summer.

And, of course, there are children's books. In addition to having a three year-old at home, I am lucky to be the children's book buyer for the store, and so reading children's books is truly part of my job. The Odd One Out is actually on Diane's shelf, but I love this adorable "spot the difference" picture book for little ones. Ditto Paul Meets Bernadette, a beautiful book in both text and illustrations. For older youth reading, perennial favorites are The Mysterious Benedict Society, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and Eleanor & Park.

Could I keep on listing? Oh, yes, I really could, but instead I'll invite you to come in and take a look at our staff picks for yourself. And while you're here, please share your own favorites!

Awaiting Spring

To all of the skiers: Happy Snow! For the rest of us: Time to get out the gardening books!

We're getting ready for spring by sprucing up all over the store, beginning with the window. The next time you come by, you'll see some of our gardening books on display alongside springtime reading for kids and adults.

People who responded to our survey in February indicated that they would like to see more stationery supplies at the bookshop, and we're starting with some fun new items from Stubby Pencil Studio including cute erasers, Smencils and Snifty Pens in scents from peppermint to chocolate chip cookie, Crayon Rocks, and more. These would look great in an Easter basket!

Come by soon and take a look around - there are plenty of new books to browse, too, including Leland Kinsey's Winter Ready, which he will be here to read from this Tuesday, March 25th, at 7 p.m.

Come on in!

It's nice and toasty warm in the shop and there are lots of good, warm, fresh books in here!  

Maple.

Eventually it's going to be time to sugar again.  It must be sneaking up on us now, right?  Right?  We have some books on the subject if you are looking for how to boil your own or maybe you'd like to read some stories and lore beside the wood stove before we slip into spring.

Here's an excerpt from the song "Maple Sweet" written by Perrin Batchelder Fiske in 1837. (We used to have a Pete Sutherland cassette tape with this song on it and I remember singing loudly along to it during sugaring season while navigating muddy back roads with the windows down for the first time since the fall before.  Good times.)

Oh you say you don't believe it
Take a saucer and a spoon.
Though you're sourer than a lemon
You'll be sweeter very soon.
'Til everyone you meet
At home or on the street
Will have half a mind to bite you 
For you look so very sweet!

Radiance & Please Take Our Survey!

First of all please, if you have not done it yet, take our survey!  

And now… Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah...

I picked this up the other day and read the first few pages.  I can't wait to sink  my teeth into this one.  Here's what got me:

…The places I come from have such righ languages, such a variety of expression.  In Sierra Leone we have about fifteen languages and three dialects.  I grew up speaking about seven of them.  My mother tongue, Mende, is very expressive, very figurative, and when I write, I always struggle to find the English equivalent of things that I really want to say in Mende.  For example, in Mende, you wouldn't say "night came suddenly"; you would say "the sky rolled over and changed its sides."  Even single words are this way  -- the word for "ball" in Mende translates to a "nest of air" or a "vessel that carries air."

If I express such things in written English the language takes on a kind of new mode… When I started writing this novel, I wanted to introduce all these things to my work.  They are part of what makes language come alive for me.

Independent Bookstores

Yesterday, while still being one with the couch after a stretch of the flu, I heard Fresh Air on NPR.  Ms. Gross interviewed Ann Patchett about her new book of essays, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage.  What struck me was what Ms. Patchett had to say about independent bookstores:

Terry Gross:  So even though you have a bookstore now, do you ever buy your books online?

Ann Patchett:  NO

Terry Gross:  Because as you pointed out, your store, little independent stores like yours can’t carry everything...

Ann Patchett:  Right.  Well we can order it for you.  You know, it’s not that I think no one should order books online... there are a lot of little towns that don’t have bookstores or you might not enjoy going to the bookstore and I think that that’s fine, too.  Buy books online.  But i think that what’s important is that if you value a book store -- if that’s something you want in your community -- if you want to take your children to story hour, if you want to meet the authors who are coming through town, if you want to get together for a book club at a book store or you want to come in and talk to the smart booksellers, if you want to have that experience of a book store then it is up to you -- it is your responsibility to buy your book in the bookstore and that’s what keeps the bookstore there.  And that’s true for any little independent business.  You can’t go in to the little gardening store and talk to them about pesticides and when do you plant and what kind of tools do you need and use their time for an hour and their intelligence and then go to Lowe’s and buy your plants for less.  THAT you CANNOT do.  So that’s my message.

With the return of the light -- and the rain -- and then back to the snow and the cold -- what are you hoping to be reading over the winter?  Here are what some of the Galaxy Bookshop booksellers will be reading in the coming weeks:  The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert, Let Him Go by Larry Watson, Transatlantic by Colum McCann, and Falling For Eli to name a few.

And you?  What are you reading as we go from the dark back into the light?

Out of Print Totes

We have Out of Print tote bags in the Galaxy right now that are well worth mentioning. Above, The Hungry Caterpillar.  On the flip side it has the fruits with the holes in them you will remember if you have read this story to someone you love 5,647 times.  We also have totes featuring The Great Gatsby, Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, and Moby Dick.  Could you put a copy of the book in the matching tote?  Yes, you could!

 *Velvet dress and twinkle lights not included.*

Book Jam Picks & Miscellaneous Good Things

Thank you to all of you for coming out and helping us celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Galaxy Bookshop last Sunday!  It was so nice to fill in the spaces between good books with lots and lots of good people!  At the end of the evening it was like this:

David Budbill went above and beyond the call of duty reading stories to the youngest partygoer until closing time.

Were you able to join us for the Book Jam?  If not, I have for you a list of the recommendations that were given out that evening while we were cozied up at Claire's sipping drinks and listening to story lines…

MEMOIR FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO LIVE VICARIOUSLY THROUGH OTHERS’ EXPERIENCES:

End of Your Life Book Club, Schwalbe.  As mother dies, she and son read. 

NON-FICTION/REFERENCE BOOK/POETRY: FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO THINK AND CHAT WHILE SITTING BY THE WOOD STOVE:

Maps, Mizielinska.  The world unfolds through fun illustrations.

Winesburg, Ohio, Anderson.  Classic glimpses of small town lives.

Boys in the Boat, Brown.  Gripping and inspiring window to a world and time.

50 Foods, Behr.  Opinionated culinary guide with fun illustrations.

ADULT FICTION:  FOR A MAN WHO HAS ENOUGH TECH TOYS BUT NOT ENOUGH GOOD FICTION:

Yellow Birds, Powers.  Two friends. Iraq War.  Poetic.  Tragic.

Where I'm Calling From, Carver.  Shows why Carver is the best!

ADULT FICTION:  FOR A WOMAN WHO ONLY HAS TIME FOR THE BEST FICTION:

The Interestings, Wolitzer.  Follow friends from camp.  They mature!

The Signature of All Things, Gilbert.  Not eat, pray, love.  Just great fiction.

ADULT FICTION FOR ANYONE:

Bitter almonds, Cosse.  French woman tutors.  Immigrant teaches.  Sparse.

11/22/63, King.  Can Jake alter events around JFK?

Transatlantic, McCann.  Spectacular storytelling, expansive scope, real and imagined.

Bad Monkey, Hiaasen.  Pure laugh out loud fun.

YOUNG ADULT FICTION--FOR TEENS AND TWEENS AND ADULTS WHO LOVE THEM:

The Ruby Red Trilogy, Gier.  Time travel, mystery, adventure, and romance.

Wonder, Palacio.  Can classmates get beyond an extraordinary face?

BOOKS FOR YOUNGSTERS (8-12) BEYOND TOYS BUT NOT READY FOR TEEN TOPICS:

Bo at Ballard Creek, Hill.  For Little House fans.  Gold rush.

True Colors, Kinsey-Warnock.  Heartwarming, historic, memorable characters & mystery.

PICTURE BOOKS:  FOR FAMILIES TO READ TOGETHER DURING SNOWSTORMS:

The Christmas Wish, Evert.  Horses!  Reindeer!  Travel with Anja in a magical dream!

Journey, Becker.  Red marker, imagination, and a spectacular journey!

Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site.  For littles who love machines and need sleep!

The Day the Crayons Quit, Daywalt.  Crayons protest.  Readers laugh.  Great gift!

And finally, the galactic cupcakes that were eaten up at the anniversary:

A Christmas Wish by, Lori Evert

Christmas books come and go, full of snow and elves, mangers and angels, stockings and jingle bells. Once in a while, one of those books comes with a little extra magic that marks it as a future classic. For us, The Christmas Wish, by Lori Evert, has that magic, the kind of book to share with the family each year, making it as much a part of holiday tradition as A Christmas Carol or The Polar Express.

Plucky and kind-hearted Anja has one wish: She wants to be one of Santa’s elves. After studying hard so that she can find her way to the North Pole and performing several thoughtful tasks for her loved ones before she leaves, Anja starts her journey north. Her kindness is rewarded by offers of help along the way, from a bright-eyed cardinal, a steady horse, a shy musk-ox, a friendly polar bear, and, finally, one of Santa’s own flying reindeer.

The story is gentle and satisfying, and the photographs by Per Breiehagen is beautiful and inviting right from the cover. With a color palette informed by the whites and grays of the snowy north (“a place so far north that the mothers never pack away the wool hats or mittens”), the one spot of color drawing the eye through the story is the holly berry red of little Anja’s hat, plaid dress, and rosy cheeks, also found in the red feathers of the friendly cardinal.

A Christmas Wish captivated all of us, right out of the box, and we are excited to share it with you so that you can share this joyful little book with your loved ones this Christmas.

Coming Soon :: Galaxy Bookshop

There are some exciting goings-ons around the Galaxy in the coming weeks that you should know about.

1.  This coming Saturday, November 23, from 2-4 PM the Galaxy is hosting a space for writers to write in at Claire's.  November is National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo, but you don't have to be working on your 50,000 words in 30 days to join us.  You can just drop in  with your pen and paper or your laptop and spend some time writing in the company of others!  (We need to wrap up swiftly at 4 PM when the dinner staff comes on.)

2.  Sunday, December 1st, from 8 AM to 5 PM is the Galaxy's 25th Anniversary Celebration!  There will be the annual customer appreciation sale as well as guest booksellers: 11 AM will find Natalie Kinsey-Warnock in the store, Howard Frank Mosher steps in at 1 PM and 3 PM will bring David Budbill.  Please come out and celebrate these 25 years with us -- we would love to see you!

3.  And last but not least, mark your calendar now for Tuesday, December 3rd, 7 PM the second ever Galaxy Bookshop Book Jam!  From our web site:

Last spring, we hosted Pages in the Pub, with the Book Jam blog and Jeudevine Library. It was such a popular event, that we're bringing it back, just in time for the holidays! 

Gather some friends and join us for drinks and an evening of great conversation about books with our expert panel. Lisa Sammet, of the Jeudevine Library; Linda Ramsdell; Lisa Christie, of the Book Jam Blog; and a special guest from the community will present a list of the books they are the most excited to share with others this season. It's a great opportunity to make your list of winter reading, as well as to get gift ideas for your friends and family!

Tickets to this event are $10, and the cost includes one beer, wine, or soda and a donation to the Jeudevine Library. Tickets are available for sale in advance at The Galaxy Bookshop and the Jeudevine Library. 

Ed Behr :: 50 Foods

The Galaxy Bookshop and Claire's Restaurant welcome Ed Behr for a conversation about the pleasures of eating over a dinner celebrating the pure tastes of food! Ed Behr will be at Claire's for a special dinner  Tuesday, November 19th, at 5:30 P.M.  The prix-fixe dinner includes five courses paired with wine for $65 per person, tax and gratuity not included.  Please call 472-7053 for reservations.

Mr. Behr agreed to answer a few questions ahead of his visit.

1.  How did you come to write 50 Foods:  The Essentials of Good Taste?

EB:  After 25 years of travel, research, interviewing, and writing about food and wine -- and not least editing and publishing the work of others, including some of the greatest experts -- 50 Foods was the natural book to write, my magnum opus, to risk a grand description. It gathers and presents a large part of my work and of all I've learned. I've always focused on taste. I've often specialized in ingredients and the basic elements of eating -- in bread, cheese, ham, for instance -- the foundations of the pleasure we find in eating. This a sort of how-to book for eaters, a guide to deliciousness. It's full of practical information about food.

2.  Do you have a favorite go-to cookbook?

EB:  No. For me, that's potentially a big question, which doesn't lend itself to a quick response. I look to books more for inspiration than for recipes. But if I were to cite what I think are the two best cookbooks in English, they are Richard Olney's Simple French Food and Patience Gray's Honey from a Weed. Those two writers understand food and drink, they have, or really had, vast experience, and they write extremely well. They are, almost by definition, in the library of every Western cook who loves food and books.

3.  What's your favorite passage or line from a book? 

EB:  Possibly Richard Olney's description of cassoulet in Simple French Food, which I quote in 50 Foods.

4.  What are you reading currently? Non-food, Trollope's Eustace Diamonds. Food:  Jon Bonné's The New California Wine.

You can hear Ed Behr on Vermont Edition on Vermont Public Radio this Monday, November 18th, at noon and 7 P.M as well!

Archer Mayor :: Three Can Keep A Secret

Come out to the Galaxy on Tuesday, November 12 at 7PM to spend an evening with Archer Mayor and his new book Three Can Keep A Secret.

1.  How did you come to write the Joe Gunther series?  Did you realize when you started the first one that it was going to be a series?

AM:  I did intend it to be a series, but had no idea at the start how long it might become. I am surprised but pleased by its longevity. I chose Joe and his stories to serve as social anthropologies more than mysteries, since I am interested by people's abilities or inabilities to sort things out while in crisis.

2.  What book or books are your favorite(s)?

AM:  The one that's in my head — I haven't messed it up by writing it yet.

3.  What's your favorite line or quote from a book?

AM:  Can't think of one offhand.

4.  What are you reading currently?

AM:  Just wrapping up Atkinson's The Guns At Last Light.

Ellen Bryant Voigt :: Headwaters

Mark your calendar for this coming Tuesday evening, November 5, at 7 PM to hear poet Ellen Bryant Voigt read from her new book, Headwaters, at the Galaxy Bookshop.

To read an interview with Ellen, please visit Granta.

Abigail Carroll :: Three Squares

Vermont author Abigail Carroll visits the Galaxy on Tuesday, October 22nd, 7 P. M. for a discussion, slide show, and signing of her new book Three Squares:  The Invention of the American Meal.  In Three Squares Ms. Carroll upends the popular understanding of our most cherished mealtime traditions, revealing that our eating habits have never been stable -- far from it, in fact.  We asked Ms. Carroll a few questions to get to know her better.

Q:  Galaxy Bookshop:    How did you come to write Three Squares?

A:  Abigail Carroll:  When I was researching connections between obesity and snacking as a consulting curator for the Indiana State Museum, I realized that no one had written a book about the history of snacking in America, so I decided to write it. I wanted to know what snacking was like in centuries past—Did the Puritans snack? What about the founding mothers and fathers, Lower East Side tenement dwellers, westbound pioneers? But soon into my research I learned that the story of the snack is wrapped up in the story of the American meal. They are two sides of the same coin, and you can’t tell one story without the other—so in Three Squares, I tell both.

     

Q:  When did your interest in food and food history start?

A:  When I was a child, my family visited historical houses whenever we traveled, and I always found myself drawn to the kitchen. The past seemed so foreign, and yet here, at the hearth or in front of an old iron cookstove, I felt I could relate to the people who lived in these houses so long ago. I imagined that food meant something to them, just as it did for me--though I wasn't sure the meanings were the same. In many ways, my career has focused on unraveling those meanings.

Q:  What book or books are your favorites and why?

A:  In terms of food titles, I keep coming back to Laura Shapiro’s fun and ingenious Something From the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America and Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century as well as William Woys Weaver’s elegantly written and illustrated America Eats: Forms of Edible Folk Art and The Christmas Cook: Three Centuries of American Yuletide Sweets. These books contain such art and insight that I always pick up on new ideas when I re-read them.

Food history aside, I was riveted by Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet Spy (Eric Metaxes) when I read it last year. I have since loaned my copy to many friends who have found themselves similarly moved. This is the story of a gentle and yet inspiringly courageous modern-day hero, and it’s the kind of book you can’t read without being changed.

Q:  What's your favorite passage or line from a book?

A:  I have always loved poetry, and I’m grateful for my sixth grade English teacher who required us to memorize poems and recite them in class (to the dread of most of my classmates, but to my utter delight). My favorite lines from books today are the poems I committed to memory way back then because they have remained close friends ever since: “I wondered lonely as a cloud…” “Whose woods these are I think I know…” “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness…” “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky…” "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree…” “The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees…”

Q:  What are you reading currently?

A:  I’m currently reading Michael Pollan’s Cooked: A History of Transformation, which asks some timely and relevant questions about the place of cooking in American culture—its decline and its future. Pollan argues that what we eat is less important to a healthy diet than whether we cook it, and I find this concept intriguing. In Three Squares, I propose a similar notion—that meals have a protective quality. When we eat together, we always eat better.

Katharine Britton :: Little Island

Vermont author Katharine Britton is coming to the Galaxy Bookshop at 7 P.M. on Tuesday, October 15th.  Her second novel, Little Island, is just out this fall.  It's the story of a family coming together for a memorial service and facing the events of their past, with secrets and alliances to spare.  Katharine kindly answered some questions for us in advance of her reading on Tuesday evening.

Q:  Galaxy Bookshop:  How did you come to write the story of Little Island?

A:  Katharine Britton:  I was vacationing in Maine, trying to think what to write about for my second book. Next door a family started to gather: cars pulled into the drive, people piled out, groups formed on the front and back lawn, some folks left, new folks arrived... Being a nosy writer, I spent much of the weekend on my second story deck, observing this ebb and flow. 

That gathering reminded me of my own family, which congregates in Vermont ever summer. Our gatherings have a distinct emotional and physical dynamic, and I thought it would be an interesting challenge to try to recreate this in a novel. So, I gave each of my characters a crisis or issue in their life, as they prepare for their family weekend on a small island in Maine. Family members, for the most part, are not aware of what’s going on in one another’s lives⎯as is so often the case. 

I wrote the book in multiple points of view, so the reader knows more than the characters in the novel, and I present the story in relatively short scenes, to replicate the truncated conversations that often happen at family gatherings, due to constant interruptions. 

I want the reader to feel like a guest at Little Island Inn. One who keeps happening upon different members of the Little family, having their conversations in the kitchen or out on the wide front porch as they prepare for their grandmother’s memorial service and deal with the issues in their lives.

Q:  GB:  What books are your favorites and why?

A:  KB:  How much space do we have? I like books for different reasons. Some I latch onto for their great stories, others for the way the author plays with form or language. 

I read Gone Girl recently and was so impressed by Gillian Flynn’s ability to, in an instant, turn a sympathetic character into one I despised and feared. I was completely engrossed by Tanya French’s Into the Woods. She kept me guessing right up to the last page. Julie Orringer’s stories in Learning to Breathe Underwater are all gems. I’ve admired and enjoyed everything I’ve read by Kate Atkinson. Other favorite authors include Barbara Kingsolver, Louise Erdrich, Anne Patchett, Richard Russo... The list goes on and on.

For classics, I’d choose A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird. 

Q:  GB:  What's your favorite passage or line from a book?

A:  KB:  These lines from near the beginning of To Kill a Mockingbird give so much information in such a spare and elegant way.

“Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square.

A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry; for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.” 

Q:  GB:  What are you reading currently?

A:  KB:  Right now I’m reading Bossypants. I read a lot of fiction and wanted something funny. I just finished The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman. Very good and quite somber.

To see the trailer for Katharine's book Little Island, please visit here.  And remember:  Tuesday, October 15th at 7 P.M. at the Galaxy Bookshop in downtown Hardwick!

World of Doughnuts

The bluster and rain today is putting me in mind of something warm from the kitchen and don't we have several copies of World of Doughnuts by Stephanie Rosenbaum!  Yes we sure do.  Here are some of the recipes found in this book:  Old-Fashioned Glazed, Double Dutch Chocolate, Cardamom Doughnuts with Rose Syrup.  Apple Cider doughnuts?  Yes!  Beignets?  Yes!  Maple Bacon Doughnuts?  Oh my yes!  These books are going fast but we still have a couple here. You know, get 'em while they're hot...

And if you want a little story to go with your doughnuts I can highly recommend the Donut Chef.  He starts out simple but then the competition moves in and the doughnuts get wilder and wilder.  I won't spoil the end for you but rest assured it's all good.