Julia Ridley Smith, "The Sum of Trifles" (U Georgia Press, 2021)

New Books in Literature · Feb 4, 2022 · 32m

We all live surrounded by objects: some practical, some personal, some handed down from family generations past. But though we interact with material things every day, we don’t often stop to consider the complex histories and stories of the objects in our lives—what they say about our culture, our families, and ourselves. Over a lifetime we accumulate these things, and when we die, they serve as evidence of who we once were and how we once lived. When writer Julia Ridley Smith’s parents passed away, they left behind a home full of treasures. As lifelong antique dealers, they collected scores…