FARMINGTON – On Saturday, December 18 from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Devaney Doak and Garrett Booksellers will welcome local Temple author John Hodgkins for a meet and greet and book signing of his latest book, Boiling Off: The Story of Maple Sugaring in Maine.
In Boiling Off, Hodgkins invokes a world rich in both general and personal history. With over fifty years of maple sugaring under his own belt, along with two turns at the helm of The Maine Maple Producers Association, he had his hands on changing technologies, the establishment of Maine Maple Sunday, and all the pleasures and vicissitudes involved in his part time vocation. Whether writing about the onset of plastic tubing, Leader Special Evaporators, or the ins and outs of maple syrup grading, Hodgkins writes with a winning combination of experience and research, humorous self deprecation, and hard won authority.
As does a good maple syrup, a good story involves a careful blending of its ingredients so that the result is greater than the sum of its constituent parts. John Hodgkins’ Boiling Off: The Story of Maple Sugaring in Maine is a rich narrative full of the subtle flavors of well-cured history and anecdote. It perfectly reflects the smooth and unified character of its subject, pure maple syrup. A book—and an event—not to be missed.
