Seven Days writers can’t possibly read, much less review, all the books that arrive in a steady stream by post, email and, in one memorable case, as a 13-hour voice memo that concluded with a demonic, vibrato-y shriek. So this occasional feature is our way of introducing you to a handful of books by Vermont authors. To do that, we contextualize each book just a little and quote a single representative sentence from, yes, page 32. ➆
The Future
Monica Ferrell, Four Way Books, 112 pages. $17.95.
A pomegranate / Uncut. / It’s bloody down there.
Monica Ferrell’s third poetry collection, out in March, considers the whole scope of life on Earth, from geologic epochs to the minutiae of modern living. But it’s in no way a straight shot through time. A professor of creative writing and part-time Vermonter, Ferrell weaves backward and forward, from a 16th-century naval battle to TikTok filters, with incisive imagery and wry humor.
Motherhood is a frequent touchstone in The Future, the messy miracle of birth and the passing of eternity’s baton from parent to child: “Soon they will become the is and I a was.” History surrounds us — and the future literally erupts from some of us — whether we learn from any of it or not. “Can’t ask the citizens of Atlantis how it felt / when the water started whispering, at first a trickle.”
Ferrell is a clever, lyrical companion for the journey on “this pitted parking / Lot of a planet.” The ride isn’t always comfortable, but where — or when — else are we going?
— Angela Simpson
Remembering Mama and La Mia Famiglia: Stories and Recipes
Louis G. Giancola, Giancola Family of Books, 184 pages. $18.95.
Mama’s new kitchen was the talk of all the neighborhood.
Louis Giancola grew up in working-class Rutland to his mother’s Italian-accented refrain: “You gotta take the bitter with the sweet.” Mama’s lesson stuck, and the two flavors thread through the memoir Giancola penned to honor and pass down family stories.
Matriarch Maria Caterina is the heart of her youngest son’s book. It launches with a screen-worthy scene in which she dares to marry a “handsome, blue-eyed Italian” of a different region from her Sicilian parents. To express their displeasure, they once locked their daughter out of the house for an entire “bitter cold and damp night.” Giancola later reveals that in his mother’s youth, the stress of poverty led his grandparents to drink and beat their children.
The struggles are balanced by warm anecdotes of familial devotion and abbondanza around the dinner table. While his book’s recent family history leans too personal, Giancola captures the immigrant experience vividly enough to engage history buffs and pay homage to his spirited mama.
— Melissa Pasanen
Lambs in Winter: Sketches of a Vermont Life Through Seasons of Change
Alexis Lathem, Bright Leaf, 231 pages. $24.95.
We ate shish kebab and salad, and a smoky goopy dish called baba ganoush, with freshly baked Syrian bread.
Lathem’s fond reminiscence of a bold-flavored staple meal from her Brooklyn childhood is no surprise. More unexpected is that this city kid, who had what she calls “biophobic parents,” ended up on a farm in Vermont.
The Richmond writer — a food and environmental justice advocate, journalist, essayist, poet, and former communications director at Rural Vermont — documents the pastoral part of her life in this essay collection, which winds through the seasons of two decades on the three-acre homestead she shares with her husband.
Between vignettes of the haunting cries of a bottle lamb during the Valentine’s Day blizzard of 2007 and the “tender domesticity” of swallows nesting in a freshly rebuilt historic barn, Lathem considers the philosophical questions of what it means to lead this rural existence. Those quandaries can be a little bleak, but they reflect the kind of broad thinking one does while waiting for a newborn lamb to find its wobbly feet.
— Jordan Barry
After the Storm: A Vermont Village Mystery
Dan Marshall, Onion River Press, 306 pages. $17.99.
The arm strength required was a bit surprising, but Kate was not a weakling…
Kate Stone has bailed from her toxic marriage in Connecticut and relocated to Merryfield, a fictional Vermont town. In this community, everyone knows everyone else’s business and has preconceived notions of Kate — especially Doris Freemantle, matriarch of the town’s wealthiest family; and Tiffany Thompson, her scheming, soon-to-be daughter-in-law. They assume that this attractive outsider has come to steal Tiffany’s prize catch, Ben.
Instead, Kate takes a shine to Ben’s hunky brother, Rory, and the two go horseback riding. But before sparks can ignite, Rory is found dead in a creek. When the medical examiner rules his death a homicide, everyone suspects Kate, who must prove her innocence and solve this small-town murder mystery.
The story reads reasonably well but suffers from too many stock characters: the gossipy diner waitress; the haughty, iron-willed matriarch; the shrewish, manipulative fiancée. After the Storm could have been Mayberry meets “Twin Peaks,” but there’s too much of the former and not enough of the latter.
— Ken Picard
The Second Oldest Profession: The Wet Nurse, Revered and Reviled
Barbara Zucker, Abbeville Press, 175 pages. $24.95.
Piss is poison. It must be expelled. Milk is sustenance. It is expressed.
Bosoms abound in this accessibly written and thoroughly researched book by artist and academic Barbara Zucker, from a 1650 painting of the Virgin “athletically” squirting milk into St. Bernard’s open mouth to Niki de Saint Phalle’s multicolored Nanas’ nanas to a golden bustier of bazoombas from the “WAP” video by Cardi B.
Zucker, a longtime University of Vermont professor, presents a deep dive into the global history of wet nurses — professional breastfeeders who were not only common but crucial for keeping infants alive in the days before formula and refrigeration. Zucker shows us how these women were regarded, paid and treated; some employers even selected nurses from preferred milk-producing regions of France. European nurses wore elaborate headdresses; Japanese ones suckled bear cubs to get rid of excess milk. Zucker’s feminist analysis of this history is both deep and fascinating, and the book’s many images, from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to Zucker’s own drawings, offer a whole new way to look at boobs.
— Alice Dodge
This article appears in The Media Issue • 2026.
