books

Mitchell's Book Corner 54 Main Street, 228-1080

"One Hundred & One Beautiful

Towns in France: Food & Wine"

by Yvon Busson & René Gast

February may be a short month, but here on Nantucket it does seem to drag. How can you make the most of the cold nights? Throw a theme party! "One Hundred & One Beautiful Towns in France: Food and Wine" gives you a tour of France from Provence to Brittany, from Acquitane to Franche- Comté, from Burgundy to Lorraine, and beyond. With each city the food and wine known for the region is highlighted. Serve strawberries in the tradition of Plougastel-Daoulas, smoked andouille which is a favorite in Guémené-Sur-Scorff, scallops which hail from Saint-Brieuc and wash it all down with champagne, the namesake of Reims. After your party you can spend some time enjoying the beautiful photography and begin to plan ahead next February for a trip to see the area in person!

- Lucretia Voigt,

Mitchell's Book Corner

Nantucket Bookworks 25 Broad Street, 228-4000

"The Invention of

Everything Else"

by Samantha Hunt

Samantha Hunt's second novel certainly begins to fulfill the promise of her debut, "The Seas," and further indicates the range of this young writer. In this book she re-invents the eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla, whose theoretical work formed the basis for the development of alternating electrical current, among many other major technical and scientific innovations, for which he never received full credit or much remuneration owing largely to his impractical behavior. Living as an aged recluse in the Hotel New Yorker, Tesla befriends Louisa, a young chambermaid, whose life is taken up with her father Walter, her beloved radio drama, and their pigeons. Tesla, having given up on humans, loves New York pigeons and, uh, one in particular. With the intertwining of these characters and others, such as an attractive, cultured couple who befriend Tesla, a young man perhaps cosmically intended for Louisa, and the memory of Freddie, Walter's deceased wife and great love, Hunt explores the many ramifications of love and connection, eccentricity and society, imagination and the magic of the world, not to mention a splendid evocation of New York City in the first half of the twentieth century, with vigor and originality.

- Dick Burns, Nantucket Bookworks