Glass Paper Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things

On the face of it, the morning paper, a cup of coffee, and the mug into which it's poured are simple, expected pleasures--rarely given much thought unless they fail to appear. So it seemed to journalist Leah Hager Cohen, until one particularly focused moment in a Boston coffee shop when she found herself pondering how disconnected she was from the unseen elements that brought her Sunday morning ritual to life. That instant was the genesis of Glass Paper Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things. In it, Hager Cohen traces the stories of the glass cup from which she's sipping, the paper upon which her news is printed, and the coffee beans that gave birth to her morning jolt. This leads to tales of source origins and legends. But she also pays homage to the people involved in turning raw materials into consumer goods: Ruth Lamp, who oversees the Anchor Hocking glass factory's Lancaster, Ohio, select and pack department; Brent Boyd, a fourth-generation Canadian logger; and Basilio Salinas, who tends coffee plants on a cooperative in Pluma Hidalgo, near Oaxaca, Mexico. Woven throughout this thoughtful meditation are the elements that make the market tick, politics, philosophy, and musings on the role advertising plays in removing us from the true qualities of the items that we employ in daily life.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year

One of the Toronto Globe and Mail's Ten Best Books of the Year

"A minor miracle...After you read it, nothing-not even a sheet of newsprint-will seem ordinary again."
-New York Times Book Review

"Cohen's tracing of the three objects is fascinating, but what really sets it apart is the poetic beauty of the prose."
--Philadelphia Inquirer

"The book itself seems to vibrate in your hands as you discover an odd mysticism rooted in the most ordinary and most obvious."
--Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul

"These are not merely stories about production and commerce, but richly hued, intimate portraits of people whose work and lives are seamlessly integrated...Something to be savored."
--Toronto Globe and Mail

"At the deepest level, this is a book about storytelling as a mission of discovery and transcendence."
--New York Newsday