Love ─ A Philadelphia Affair

Philadelphia has been at the heart of many books by award-winning author Beth Kephart, but none more so than the affectionate collectionLove. This volume of personal essays and photographs celebrates the intersection of memory and place. Kephart writes lovingly, reflectively about what Philadelphia means to her. She muses about meandering on SEPTA trains, spending hours among the armor in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and taking shelter at Independence Mall during a downpour.

In Love, Kephart shares her loveof Reading Terminal Market at Thanksgiving: “This abundant, bristling market is, in November, the most unlonesome place around.” She waxes poetic about the shoulder-to-shoulder crowds, the mustard in a Salumeria sandwich, and the “coins slipped between the lips of Philbert the pig.”

Kephart also extends her journeys to the suburbs, Glenside and Ardmore—and beyond, to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; Stone Harbor, New Jersey; and Wilmington, Delaware. What emerges is a valentine to the City of Brotherly Love and its environs. InLove, Philadelphia is “more than its icons, bigger than its tagline.”

Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of nineteen books, including Going Over, Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River,and Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self. She has been nominated for a National Book Award, has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, and has won the national Speakeasy Poetry Prize. Kephart writes a monthly column on the intersection of memory and place for thePhiladelphia Inquirer and is a frequent contributor to the Chicago Tribune. She teaches memoir at the University of Pennsylvania and blogs daily at www.beth-kephart.blogspot.com.