Telling the stories of two Portsmouths—from the gritty working seaport to the cultural heritage destination—this book tracks four hundred years of history. Through dramatic tales and behind-the-scenes efforts of the controversial founding of Strawbery Banke, J. Dennis Robinson explores the politics of preservation in a blue-collar city. The result is “an important book about one of the best history museums in the country,” says New Hampshire filmmaker Ken Burns, and the book is the 2008 bronze medal winner from the New England Museum Association.
Strawbery Banke, A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
University Press of New England, 2007
416 pages, $35

Long-time local journalist Ray Carbone and more than a dozen photographers and writers with ties to the New Hampshire Lakes Region have captured the area’s special features: the breathtaking waterviews, the glorious mountain vistas, the vivid local wildlife and the colorful small towns. “It’s heartening to see how people have fallen in love with this book,” Carbone says. “For some, the book is a keepsake … to keep it around for years. Others say they’re giving it as a gift, something to show or help people remember the beauty of the area.”
The Lakes Region of New Hampshire: Four Seasons, Countless Memories
Carbone Productions, LLC; 2009
92 pages; $29.95

Marjorie Sandor’s memoir combines entries from a garden journal with meditations and essays that examine a person’s need for adventure and refuge as she approaches middle age, leaves her marriage, falls in love with a colleague, and buys and renovates an old house. She and her new partner face the proposed development of a student apartment complex just behind their small back garden—threatening the newfound haven the couple hoped to make for themselves.
The Late Interiors: A Life Under Construction
Arcade Publishing, 2011
208 pages, $22.95

The twentieth anniversary edition of this classic book features a new preface from author Thomas C. Hubka. The title comes from the rhythmic cadence sung by nineteenth-century children and refers to the four essential components of the farms where many lived. Still standing today, these stately connected farm buildings offer insight into rural culture, the people who lived there and their agricultural way of life. The book is a winner of the Abbott Lowell Cummings Award.
Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn
University Press of New England, 2004
240 pages, $27.95

“Because chairs give their designers very little room to hide, they are a poem, rather than a novel,” so says the Design Museum in London, which collected an introduction to fifty of the key chairs that have shaped this piece of furniture’s design. This book includes classics, from Thonet’s 1870 side chair to Konstantin Grcic’s Chair_One—tracing the history of chair design in the last 150 years. Fifty Chairs That Changed the World The Design Museum, 2010 110 pages, $20

New Hampshi re Home essayist Henry Homeyer and contributing illustrator Josh Yunger have recently collaborated on Organic Gardening (Not Just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On Month-to-Month Guide. This comprehensive collection of how-tos for the ambitious home horticulturist provides detailed explanations of gardening basics organized around the calendar year. From the construction of child-sized stone igloos to the proper way to grow a date palm from a pit, Homeyer—a University of New Hampshire master gardener—guides readers through the gardening world with a friendly helping hand.
Organic Gardening (Not Just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On Month-to-Month Guide
Bunker Hill Publishing, 2011
264 pages, $17.50

Jane C. Nylander and Diane L. Viera explore four centuries of home building, looking at interiors, furnishings, family ties, cooking advances, heating, plumbing, lighting, dining rituals as well as landscapes and farms. The second edition is updated with new chapters that explore the changing roles of New England servants and the Historic New England Stewardship Program.
Windows on the Past: Four Centuries of New England Homes
Historic New England, 2009
240 pages, $45

Through more than four hundred colorful images, readers take a virtual tour of the Rufus Porter Landscape Mural School in the New England states. Authors Linda Carter Lefko and Jane E. Radcliffe expand the knowledge and understanding of the school with evidence regarding the attribution of these mostly unsigned works; suggestions on how to apply that evidence; details about preserving historic murals; and a “how-to” section that interprets Porter’s original published mural painting instructions in terms of modern equipment, materials and supplies.
Folk Art Murals of the Rufus Porter School: New England Landscapes: 1825–1845
Schiffer Books, 2011
256 pages, $59.99

For New Hampshi re Home contributor and host of the longest running TV cooking series Ciao Italia, Mary Ann Esposito finds the art of Italian cooking a way of life. As a little girl growing up in Depew, New York, she watched her two Italian grandmothers create wonderful dishes. Both nonnas, one Sicilian and one Neapolitan, were Italian natives and professional cooks. From them, Esposito gained a deep appreciation for Italian food and culture. All of this is represented in her twelfth cookbook Ciao Italia Family Classics, which features two hundred recipes plus homespun essays about Italian cooking and family traditions.
Ciao Italia Family Classics
Forthcoming in October from St. Martin’s Press