Minding the Store: How we started a business, hired our mothers, broke some dishes, fired our mothers, picked up the pieces, grew, shrank, grew again, and built Fishs Eddy

Whether it's a set of vintage plates from a 1920s steamship, a mug with a New Yorker cartoon on it, a tin of sprinkles designed by Amy Sedaris, or a juice glass from a Jazz Age hotel, Fishs Eddy products are distinctly recognisable. A New York institution, Fishs Eddy also remains a family business whose owners endured the same challenges as many family businesses - and lived to write about it in this tale filled with humorous characterisations of opinionated relatives, nosy neighbours, quirky employees, and above all the eccentric foibles of the founders themselves. Readers come to know author Julie Gaines and her husband, with whom she founded the store, and because this is a family business, the illustrations are all in the family, too: their son Ben Lenovitz's drawings bring Fishs Eddy to life with a witty style a la Roz Chast and Ben Katchor. Over the years the store has collaborated with artists and celebrities such as Charley Harper and Todd Oldham, Alan Cumming, and many others to produce original designs that are now found in thousands of stores throughout the country, and Fishs Eddy has garnered a huge amount of media coverage. A great gift for anyone who has ever dreamed of opening a little business - or anyone with any kind of dream - Minding the Store offers wisdom, inspiration, and an exceedingly entertaining story.