Gin (Object Lessons)

Product Description

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Gin tastes like Christmas to some and rotten pine chips to others, but nearly everyone familiar with the spirit holds immediate gin nostalgia. Although early medical textbooks treated it as a healing agent, early alchemists (as well as their critics) claimed gin’s base was a path to immortality-and also Satan’s tool. In more recent times, the gin trade consolidated the commercial and political power of nations and prompted a social campaign against women. Gin has been used successfully as a defense for murder; blamed for massive unrest in 18th-century England; and advertised for as an abortifacient. From its harshest proto-gin distillation days to the current smooth craft models, gin plays a powerful cultural role in film, music, and literature-one that is arguably older, broader, and more complex than any other spirit. Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Review

“In this expansive volume, Shonna Milliken Humphrey traces the history of gin, exploring the ways it’s been imbibed and the other uses it’s had throughout human history ― some of which may surprise you.” – Inside Hook“The book is far from a staid account – strange history, trivia, recipes and anecdotes abound, and Humphrey weaves autobiographical episodes throughout, making for an engaging read.” ―Portland Press Herald“I loved this book even more than I love gin, which is saying a lot. William Blake found a world in a grain of sand, but hereShonna Milliken Humphrey finds the whole universe in a juniper berry. By turns erudite and hilarious, thoughtful and provocative, Shonna shows us the history of the spirit, and-at times-her own heart. One of the most delightful books I’ve ever read.” ―Jennifer Finney Boylan, Author of Good Boy and She’s Not There

About the Author

Shonna Milliken Humphrey is the author of
Show Me Good Land (2011) and
Dirt Roads and Diner Pie (2016). Her essays have appeared in the
New York Times, The Atlantic, and
Salon. She played a key role in the posthumous publication of
The Afterlife of Kenzaburo Tsuruda written by Elisabeth Wilkins Lombardo, and for two years, she was a food writer for
The Maine Sunday Telegram. www.shonnahumphrey.com

Christopher Schaberg is Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, USA. He is the author of
The Textual Life of Airports: Reading the Culture of Flight (2013) and
The End of Airports (2015) and co-editor of
Deconstructing Brad Pitt (2014). He is series co-editor (with Ian Bogost) of Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons.

Ian Bogost is Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Founding Partner at Persuasive Games LLC. Bogost is author or co-author of seven books:
Unit Operations (2006),
Persuasive Games (2007),
Racing the Beam ( 2009), Newsgames (2010),
How To Do Things with Videogames (2011),
Alien Phenomenology (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), and
10 PRINT CHR (205.5+RND(1)); : Goto 10 (2012). Bogost also creates videogames that cover topics as varied as airport security, disaffected workers, the petroleum industry, suburban errands, and tort reform. His games have been played by millions of people and exhibited internationally. His game A Slow Year, a collection of game poems for Atari, won the Vanguard and Virtuoso awards at the 2010 Indiecade Festival.