Literary
![Alexis M. Smith - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00J516M0W.jpg)
Glaciers
A Vulture Best Short Book
A She Reads Indie Book Club Pick for Summer
"Alexis Smith's brilliant debut novel is filled with kaleidoscopic pleasures. Line by line, in and out of time, this is a haunted, joyful, beautiful book―a true gift." ―Karen Russell
"Her story could be told in other people's things. The postcards and the photographs. A garnet ring and a needlepoint of the homestead. The aprons hanging from her kitchen door. Her soft, faded, dog-eared copy of Little House in the Big Woods. A closet full of dresses sewn before she was born. All these things tell a story, but is it hers?"
Isabel is a single twenty-something in Portland, Oregon, who repairs damaged books in the basement of the local library, dreaming of a life she can't quite reach. She is filled with longing―for a life in Amsterdam even though she's never visited, for the unrequited love of a coworker, for a simpler time from her childhood in Alaska among the threatened glaciers she loves, and for the perfect vintage dress to wear to a party that just might change everything.
Unfolding over the course of a single day, Alexis M. Smith's shimmering debut finds Isabel looking into her past―remembering her parents' separation, a meeting with an astrologer, and a life-changing encounter with a glacier―and shows us how fleeting, everyday moments can reveal an entire life. In classic movies, in old photographs and unsent postcards, rare books, and thrifted gems, Glaciers tells the story of a young woman's love of the past and a hope to make something new and all her own.
A She Reads Indie Book Club Pick for Summer
"Alexis Smith's brilliant debut novel is filled with kaleidoscopic pleasures. Line by line, in and out of time, this is a haunted, joyful, beautiful book―a true gift." ―Karen Russell
"Her story could be told in other people's things. The postcards and the photographs. A garnet ring and a needlepoint of the homestead. The aprons hanging from her kitchen door. Her soft, faded, dog-eared copy of Little House in the Big Woods. A closet full of dresses sewn before she was born. All these things tell a story, but is it hers?"
Isabel is a single twenty-something in Portland, Oregon, who repairs damaged books in the basement of the local library, dreaming of a life she can't quite reach. She is filled with longing―for a life in Amsterdam even though she's never visited, for the unrequited love of a coworker, for a simpler time from her childhood in Alaska among the threatened glaciers she loves, and for the perfect vintage dress to wear to a party that just might change everything.
Unfolding over the course of a single day, Alexis M. Smith's shimmering debut finds Isabel looking into her past―remembering her parents' separation, a meeting with an astrologer, and a life-changing encounter with a glacier―and shows us how fleeting, everyday moments can reveal an entire life. In classic movies, in old photographs and unsent postcards, rare books, and thrifted gems, Glaciers tells the story of a young woman's love of the past and a hope to make something new and all her own.
Editorial Reviews
"Glaciers, Alexis Smith's brilliant debut novel, is filled with kaleidoscopic pleasures. Using prose as clear as pure, cold air, Smith moves the narrative vertically as well as horizontally, each ticking minute yielding more insights into a young woman's life revealed over one single day. The past, present, and imaginary future stream into beautifully unstable geometries: Isabel's childhood snows from her youth in Alaska are juxtaposed against her adult trip to a vintage thrift store; her hopes for an evening party push against the echoes of war that haunt a young soldier whom she loves. Line by line, in and out of time, this is a haunted, joyful, beautiful book―a true gift."
― Karen Russell
"A delicate and piercing first novel. Glaciers is like a vintage dress: charming, understated and glinting with memories of loneliness and love."
― Jane Mendelsohn
"Alexis M. Smith's Glaciers is a quietly powerful fairy tale. Smith's voice, patient and understated and precise captures the poetry of loss and longing."
― Cara Hoffman
"Glaciers is a carefully precise and beautiful meditation on one young woman's restless heart. It resonates like a haunting postcard from someone else's life."
― Kevin Sampsell
"I cannot easily remember the last time I've been so deeply moved as in this quiet treasure."
― Douglas A. Martin
― Karen Russell
"A delicate and piercing first novel. Glaciers is like a vintage dress: charming, understated and glinting with memories of loneliness and love."
― Jane Mendelsohn
"Alexis M. Smith's Glaciers is a quietly powerful fairy tale. Smith's voice, patient and understated and precise captures the poetry of loss and longing."
― Cara Hoffman
"Glaciers is a carefully precise and beautiful meditation on one young woman's restless heart. It resonates like a haunting postcard from someone else's life."
― Kevin Sampsell
"I cannot easily remember the last time I've been so deeply moved as in this quiet treasure."
― Douglas A. Martin
Readers Top Reviews
G. WakeS Riaz
Glaciers is not gripping. You really have to grip it: take a firm hold and don't let go as the novel flits between pasts with no obvious destination at the end of it. It's a vague, fuzzy story, more likely to unsettle you than satisfy. There is a great sadness here, a fear of being left, unloved, on a shelf in a thrift store or passed onto new, uncaring, owners. The motif appears to be one of changes, to people, circumstances, ownership and meaning; the glacial changes, slow but inexorable, and the instant ones that alter your life in a blink. This shouldn't be a hard book to read, but I'm afraid it is. I started it several times before getting into it and I continually put it down as their is no real flow. It stops so I stopped and didn't really have any desire to restart. Glaciers flits from fragment to fragment, back and forward through time, leaving you to piece the story together yourself. There is not much of a story but there is a lot of white space: literally, on the page, and figuratively where you're left filling in the gaps between events, which is annoying when those gaps may be partially filled in a few pages later. I like the characters and the writing quality is good, for brief periods I feel like I'm there in the text, though there is not enough here to make reading Glaciers worth the effort and concentration. Really, go and read something else.
Afroditi Domasi
excellent service and item as described. would buy again
Bory
I could write a lot about how much I loved this book! Whoever is reading this and is not quite sure - Just buy it now!
