The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss, and Kitchen Objects

For a limited time we have copies signed by Bee Wilson.

Bee Wilson has long been one of the most astute observers of how we cook, eat, and make meaning in the kitchen. In The Heart-Shaped Tin, she turns her attention to the deeply personal and cultural significance of the objects we hold onto—from a battered wooden spoon to an inherited salt shaker or a humble melon baller.

Prompted by the rediscovery of the pan in which she baked her wedding cake decades earlier, Wilson embarks on a wide-ranging exploration of memory, loss, and resilience through kitchen tools. The result is a work of quiet brilliance, in which Roman amphorae, Wedgwood teapots, and Soviet-era cabinets stand beside Rachel Maddow’s “Big Canister Catastrophe,” and anthropological insights coexist with tender personal recollections.

Ranging across centuries and continents, and attentive to both grief and renewal, Wilson brings a literate, nimble intelligence to every page. This is not simply a book about kitchenware—it’s a profound meditation on how we make meaning, and how the ordinary things we use every day can tether us to the past, reflect who we are, and point the way forward.

Hardcover. Black-and-white images.