From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

Glaciers

Alexis M. Smith

Start date: March 9, 2015

Finish date: March 10, 2015

Discussion leader: Karen

Why we're reading this: It is a book printed by Indie publisher Tin House Books
[close] It is a book printed by Indie publisher Tin House Books

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Aug 15, 2012 David Abrams rated it it was amazing

Sometimes you find the book, and sometimes the book finds you. This was the case for me when, earlier this year, I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Bozeman, Montana "just to get a latte" (i.e., I wasn't on a typical book-buying mission). I was walking toward the cafe when it happened: Glaciers found me. It was like one of those "meet cute" scenes in movies when the pretty brunette dogwalker and the distracted guy with the briefcase, walking in opposite directions, round a corner at the sa Sometimes you find the book, and sometimes the book finds you. This was the case for me when, earlier this year, I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Bozeman, Montana "just to get a latte" (i.e., I wasn't on a typical book-buying mission). I was walking toward the cafe when it happened: Glaciers found me. It was like one of those "meet cute" scenes in movies when the pretty brunette dogwalker and the distracted guy with the briefcase, walking in opposite directions, round a corner at the same time and he ends up tangled in leashes and tails and she knocks the briefcase out of his hand, spilling papers all over the sidewalk. That's how it was for me with Alexis M. Smith's slim, pretty novel. A chance encounter. A walking past, then a double-take and a doubling-back. A glance at the cover. A skim of the plot summary, blurbs and first sentence ("Isabel often thinks of Amsterdam, though she has never been there, and probably will never go."). An eye-poke of interest. An impulse buy.

It was the best thing I bought all year (and that includes the 2011 GMC Acadia my wife and I just purchased).

The novel chronicles one day in the life of Isabel, a twenty-eight-year-old library worker, as she repairs damaged books, prepares for a party, and pines for a co-worker, an Iraq War veteran named "Spoke." As a single woman living in Portland, Oregon, Isabel haunts thrift stores and collects second-hand items like postcards, teacups, aprons, dresses--the cast-off remnants which were once new, happy purchases by someone decades earlier. "She feels a need to care for them that goes beyond an enduring aesthetic appreciation," Smith writes. "She loves them like adopted children."

It's fitting that Isabel collects scraps of the past because she is a character who lives primarily in memory. The book slips seamlessly between the present and Isabel's childhood growing up in Alaska and Portland with her mother, father and sister Agnes. Written in sentences as simple and delicate and beautiful as a single strand of a spider's silk, Glaciers reads like a literal dream. We move through the pages quickly, as if floating just above the words, and it's over before we want it to be. I could have stayed in Isabel's world for a long, long time.

Glaciers is easily one of the best books I've read this year. It's beautifully packaged by Tin House Books--French flaps, deckle-edge pages, generous white space around the text--and even more gorgeous, chapter by chapter, sentence after sentence, word to word. ...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Kerry rated it liked it

I picked this up at the fabulous Powell's Bookstore. The author has a captivating way of describing her life and past and her encounters with others. I adored her accounts and the quirkiness that is Portland, Alaska and getting to know people. I look forward to reading future books from Ms. Alexis M. Smith. The author's voice is endearing and real in a way that I found delicate and true voice refreshing. ...more

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Jan 21, 2024 Mary rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Isabel grew up in Alaska. Before her mother left the family she told Isabel that everything changes. Isabel grows up to work in the library rescuing hurt books. She collects fragments of lives; postcards, and vintage clothing, always inventing stories for these items, She shares a mostly silent morning communion in the break room with an IT specialist named Spoke.

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