With the holiday shopping season reaching its peak over the next couple of weekends, now is the time to shop. Here are a few ideas for the book lover in your life; Newport-themed books curated by Charter Books owner Steve Iwanski, for you to add to your collection. Happy shopping!
Newport Cottages 1835-1890: The Summer Villas Before the Vanderbilt Era by Michael Kathrens
The ultimate gift in 2023 for the lover of Newport history. Author Michael Kathrens is a renowned architectural historian and well-known to those who have attended his lectures at the Preservation Society. This gorgeously illustrated bookshines a new light on the first generation of summer “cottages” in the decades before the Astors and Vanderbilts arrived.
All Hands on Deck: A Modern-Day High Seas Adventure to the Far Side of the World by Will Sofrin
Will was a 21-year-old recent graduate of IYRS sleeping on a friend’s futon when he got roped into sailing the HMS Rose from Newport to San Diego so that it could star in the film ‘Master & Commander’ with Russell Crowe. Along the way the crew of 30 oddballs hit a tropical storm, dismasted in the Atlantic, tussled with customs officials in Panama, fell in and out of love with each other, and engaged in high seas antics and hijinks on the way to California.
Wedding of the Season by Lauren Edmondson
Family secrets, revenge, gossip, and generations of family drama are in store for Cass Coventry when she returns home to Newport for her sister’s wedding. It’s the event of the summer, set against the magnificent backdrop of the City by the Sea. This was our top-selling beach read all summer and it’s a pitch-perfect, delicious novel for fans of Elin Hildebrand and Meg Mitchell Moore.
The Lost Summers of Newport by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White
“Team W” launched their national book tour in Newport in 2022, and this gripping novel is set at a fictional Bellevue Ave. mansion in three different periods: the peak of the 1890s Gilded Age, the 1950s yacht club heyday, and the present-day, when a family’s buried secrets are revealed.
Wildsam Guide to Newport, R.I.
Wildsam is a new line of travel books aimed the younger generation. Rather than the usual Rick Steves or Lonely Planet method of listing places to eat, sleep, and drink, Wildsam includes chunks of local culture to give the full portrait of the destination. Excerpts from articles and books about the town, interviews with locals, and illustrations and maps make these the perfect guides. They’ve covered London, Paris, Tokyo, National Parks, and everywhere else. Now they’ve begun a new line on American towns and Newport is the first one they’ve featured. And Charter Books is included as the #1 shop to visit!
Gilded: How Newport Became America’s Richest Resort by Deborah Davis
In this captivating book full of photographs from the era, Davis tells the story of the exclusive seaside resort town where the era’s richest and most powerful people went to play. Read about the Astors, the Vanderbilts, Edith Wharton, JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Doris Duke and more.
