In Miniature

Bestselling, award-winning writer Simon Garfield returns with an enthralling investigation of humans’ peculiar fascination with small things—and what small things tell us about our larger world. “[Simon Garfield is] an exuberant truffle-hound of the recondite and delightful factoid.” —Sunday Times (London) Simon Garfield writes books that shine a light on aspects of the everyday world in order to reveal the charms and eccentricities hiding in plain sight around us. After beguiling fans with books about everything from typography to time, from historic maps to the color mauve, he’s found his most delightful topic yet: miniatures. Tiny Eiffel Towers. Platoons of brave toy soldiers. A doll’s house created for a Queen. Diminutive crime scenes crafted to catch a killer. Model villages and miniscule railways. These are just a few of the objects you will discover in the pages of In Miniature. Bringing together history, psychology, art, and obsession, Garfield explores what fuels the strong appeal of miniature objects among collectors, modelers, and fans. The toys we enjoy as children invest us with a rare power at a young age, conferring on us a taste of adult-sized authority. For some, the desire to play with small things becomes a desire to make small things. We live in a vast and uncertain world, and controlling just a tiny, scaled-down part of it restores our sense of order and worth. As it explores flea circuses, microscopic food, ancient tombs, and the Vegas Strip, In Miniature changes the way we perceive our surroundings, encouraging all of us to find greatness in the smallest of things.

From a powerful new voice in fiction comes a compelling debut about the delicate bond between daughters and mothers, and about leaving everything you know in order to find the place where you belong. Adie has always known she was different. There's her size, for one thing. Born three months premature, Adie is the smallest of her peers. Then there's Adie's mother, who at first glance seems like so many other 1980s moms--clipping coupons and attending Feel the Burn aerobics classes. But beneath the surface is something erratic and unpredictable, something that makes her drag Adie and her older sister, Miriam, from one rental apartment to the next--until Miriam runs away. Adie is left behind with her mother, who is convinced their lives are in real danger and takes Adie on a crazy run across northern California. Now Adie faces a stark choice: submit to this increasingly surreal adventure, or grow up in ways she never imagined. . . "Life in Miniature is a stunning double portrait, subtly capturing a daughter's misconceptions of her mother's delusions--while simultaneously revealing the consequences for both--in a compulsively readable and deeply insightful first novel." --Jonathon Keats, author of The Book of the Unknown ". . .a book of intelligence and grace that will make you laugh and cry." --Terry Gamble, author of Good Family Linda Schlossberg received her PhD in English literature from Harvard University, where she is the Assistant Director of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program. Her fiction has been recognized by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, the National League of American PEN Women, and Writers at Work. She has also received research and writing grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as several awards for excellence in teaching. Linda lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When murder happens in the small town of Lincoln Point CA, there aren’t many degrees of separation between the victim and retired teacher Gerry Porter. How can she stay away from the investigation when the crime scene is the venue for her marriage to Henry Baker? But this time, nephew Detective Skip Gowen tries to discourage Gerry’s and granddaughter Maddie’s efforts to solve “The Case.” He couldn’t live with himself if the murderer learns of their efforts and comes after them....

When murder happens in the small town of Lincoln Point CA, there aren't many degrees of separation between the victim and retired teacher Gerry Porter. How can she stay away from the investigation when the crime scene is the venue for her marriage to Henry Baker? But this time, nephew Detective Skip Gowen tries to discourage Gerry's and granddaughter Maddie's efforts to solve The Case. He couldn't live with himself if the murderer learns of their efforts and comes after them....

Now that Geraldine Porter is retired, she's got time to devote to her favorite craft. You'd think the world of shoe-box-sized Victorian shadow boxes and little ceramic bathtubs would be trouble free. But Gerry's problems are anything but tiny... Gerry likes working in a smaller scale, yet her to-do list is anything but. Between creating a miniature Victorian room box for the holiday auction, teaching crafts at the Mary Todd Retirement Home, and watching her granddaughter, her calendar is bursting with holiday cheer—until she has to add in a murder investigation. The gardener at the nursing home has been found dead, and one of her very own craft students, eighty-seven-year-old Sofia Muniz, is the prime suspect. With the help of a friend and fellow crafter, Gerry turns the home upside down trying to clear Sofia's name. What she uncovers in this upscale community is not a tiny can of worms—it's more like a twisted bunch of foul snakes. And it's up to Gerry to shrink the mystery down to size...

Tiny Houses Can Hold Big Clues. Geraldine Porter is thrilled to meet bestselling author and miniatures enthusiast Varena Young. The celebrity seems to seek friendship with Gerry and her crafts group, and makes a generous offer of a house from her collection for a library fund-raiser. But Young is suddenly murdered. Gerry and her eleven-year-old granddaughter Maddie delve for information on Young�s mysterious past, and find a clue to her murder in a secret room... in a dollhouse. "Perfectly written, with a cast of wonderful characters. This series keeps getting better and better.” -- Hannah Reed, Mind Your Own Beeswax

When Dorothy Martin gets a call from her friend Ada Finch, whose gardener son has been arrested for the attempted theft of an antique dolls’ tea set from the Miniatures Museum at the imposing Brocklesby Hall, she doesn’t hesitate to offer her services to clear his name. But when theft leads to murder, Dorothy discovers there are big secrets hidden in the rooms filled with miniatures.

Between creating a miniature Victorian room box for the holiday auction and teaching crafts at an upscale retirement home, Geraldine Porter comes to the aid of one of her students, eighty-seven-year-old Sofia Muniz, who is accused of murdering the home's gardener. Original.