Brookland by Emily BartonFarrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006

Absorbing, beautiful, detailed & precise in descriptions of everything from emotional states to the mechanics of bridge-building to the many herbs and spices that can be used to flavor gin. And the sense of place, the 18th-century New York family names that linger as place-names, street-names: Joralemon, Sands, Boerum, Schermerhorn, Luquer. I found myself daydreaming of houses with Dutch doors, imagining New York when it was still clustered downtown, a Brooklyn that had recently been forest, colder winters, darker nights. The story itself is compelling, too, and the telling of it, which includes bits and pieces of letters from a mother to her daughter, full of wonderfully old-fashioned spelling, apostrophes in unexpected places.