Daniel Akst has a mission: to bring renewed attention to Philadelphia’s rich literary heritage. He serves as publisher of Tivoli Books, founded in 2024 to revive unjustly forgotten literature and publish new works overlooked by mainstream publishing.
A former Philadelphia resident himself, Akst recently announced the reissue of four novels from a series by the late Arthur R. G. Solmssen, a Philadelphia attorney and novelist whose works vividly portray the city’s legal and social world from the 1960s through the ‘80s.
The first Tivoli release is The Comfort Letter, a sharp legal drama that explores ethical challenges and the city’s complex social fabric. Akst chose it as a strong entry point to reintroduce Solmssen’s work, with plans to follow it up soon with Alexander’s Feast.
Tivoli Books is headquartered in Akst’s home in Tivoli, N.Y., and runs with a small, dedicated team that includes his wife as copy editor. This setup enables Akst to preserve the agility of a small press while passionately publishing quality and entertaining literature.
Continuing our series highlighting local independent publishers, Billy Penn recently sat down with Daniel Akst to discuss his work at Tivoli Books and the revival of Philadelphia’s literary treasures.
Daniel Akst, publisher of Tivoli Books
What motivated you to start Tivoli Books?
I just felt there were good books being missed by mainstream publishing in this country.
There’s a lot of good material that has been overlooked, and I’m pleased to be able to both bring back some books that have been forgotten, unfortunately, and to publish new material, which we’ll start doing later this year or early next year.
In some important respects, technology and other changes have democratized book publishing. A lot of times, people now use those tools to publish directly. I thought, “Maybe I could publish something good?” So, I decided to give it a go. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s been quite interesting. I’ve learned skills I didn’t know I could acquire.
What are some of those skills?
It seemed to me that an essential aspect of what we were doing would be to keep our overhead down. If you have high costs, you have to publish books that sell in enormous numbers. And to sell books in enormous numbers, they have to be the kind of books I don’t want to read or publish.
I discovered that I was a passable cover designer. I’d never tried such a thing. I got Canva, and I design our covers, and I don’t think they’re any worse than the median. People seem to like them.
Similarly, I handle contracts. We do everything in-house, and we operate without a formal office.
I’ve been an editor and writer my whole career, so that part isn’t hard for me. But you start a venture and realize you’ve launched a business. That’s sometimes a surprise. You thought you were just going to bring out some cool books that you loved and hoped others might love too. But no matter what you’re doing, you can’t lose money forever.
Like everything in life, whatever it is you’re doing involves some kind of legal, financial and marketing work. So, you discover, well, I guess that’s something you have to do yourself.
But the focus is really on literature. That was the purpose of [Tivoli Books], and that’s where I really focus my attention.
(Courtesy of Daniel Akst)
What does Tivoli Books publish, and how do you publish differently from traditional houses?
We have four titles out now, all novels. We’ll probably have maybe another four or five out by the end of the year.
We can move much faster than a conventional publisher, even though they have armies of people. We’re poor, but we’re quick. And we try to substitute taste for money, though that’s not always possible. It’s a new venture, and it’s just surprising to me that it’s been possible to do this as well as we have done it.
Can you tell me more about the gap in publishing you’re aiming to fill by bringing back forgotten literature? What does that mean to you?
The 20th century was a time of very rich literary culture on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, especially, books occupied a more central place in people’s lives.
Books received coverage everywhere. There were newspapers everywhere and alternative weeklies and magazines — and all of them covered books. So, there were a lot of books, and a lot of them were better than you’d think. A lot were terrible too, but that’s always the case.
We really intend to publish new manuscripts, new novels, memoirs, and so on. But this was a way to get started quickly, with books I already knew and loved, and that had gone out of print.
It’s possible in many ways now to very efficiently pursue this kind of work. For example, if I want to look up whether something is still in print or what the copyright status is, the necessary databases are accessible now from anywhere.
I think there are kinds of novels that aren’t written or published much anymore, novels about business, for example. I also think that, in an odd way, romance has waned as a central topic of literature in our time. Vivian Gornick has written brilliantly about that some years ago. So I think there are a lot of possibilities there, and I’m not the only one who’s pursued some of that.
The main thing you need is taste, and some cleverness with a computer — and you can do a lot.
So far, Tivoli Books has published four novels, including The Comfort Letter by Arthur R. G. Solmssen. He wrote several novels, with his first four centered on a fictional Philadelphia law firm called Conyers & Dean. Can you tell me more about Solmssen and what makes the Conyers & Dean series stand out?
A novel I had learned about was called The Comfort Letter by Arthur R. G. Solmssen, who was a Philadelphia lawyer who died in 2018.
He had a good, long life. He was a great Philadelphia and American success story. He had a long career as an attorney, but he was also a very cultured guy who loved literature. He started writing novels and made himself into quite a good novelist.
His writing shows that the law isn’t just about law or business. It’s about people. He had tremendous psychological insight as well as a great understanding of the ethical challenges of the legal system. He also had a very interesting personal background.
How much of Solmssen’s own life and experiences would you say influenced the characters and stories in his novels?
His sons have told me that people in Philadelphia would always say to him, “Oh, I’ll bet that was me that you based that character on” or “I bet that was so-and-so.” But he always said he drew widely for inspiration — and he would never be more specific than that.
But there are several examples that run through his work of his own biography influencing his work. He was born in New York, but his parents were German and went back to Germany after just a few weeks in New York. [By the time he was 8,] Hitler had come to power. Both of his parents had Jewish backgrounds, and they had the sense — and the means — to get out. They immigrated to the Philadelphia area. So he arrived here at age 8, speaking only German.
He learned English, grew up on the Main Line, attended Lower Merion High School, then went on to Harvard and later Penn Law. One of the undercurrents that runs through his books is the relationship between WASPs and Jews in Philadelphia in the middle of the last century.
His books give a portrait of the legal world in Philadelphia at that time — and, by doing that, a portrait of Philadelphia: its customs, its habits, and its biases.
How do you think these novels reflect Philadelphia’s social and cultural identity, and why do you believe they remain relevant to readers in the city today?
If we ignore the past, we can’t understand the present. And these books tell you about a past that isn’t so far past.
The first of the novels, Rittenhouse Square, deals with race, crime and the defender system in Philadelphia. In New York, we’d call it the Legal Aid Society. In Philadelphia, it’s the Defender Association — that defends people who don’t have money for lawyers.
You’ll get a vivid picture of what law firms looked like, the world of business and the role of women at that time and how it evolved. During the four Conyers & Dean books, you can see the role of women in these firms evolving. And not just women, other groups as well.
The firms portrayed in these books were small, clubby and almost exclusively WASP firms. Different ethnic groups had different firms. There used to be Jewish firms, Catholic firms, and certain areas of the law were left to certain groups and certain groups were excluded from certain areas of the law.
At the heart of The Comfort Letter is a lawyer tasked with handling a major bond deal — selling a large bond offering for a wildly ambitious and hyperkinetic entrepreneur. This entrepreneur is a relentless, driven figure who buys up one business after another, working around the clock, traveling nonstop, and barely sleeping. The story captures the intensity and ethical challenges of high-stakes business deals, reflecting a type of driven personality we still see today.
What kinds of ethical questions or tensions does the novel explore through its main character and the bond deal at the center of the story?
Ordway Smith, the protagonist of The Comfort Letter, has obligations to his firm, to his client, to the people he deals with, and to the public.
The title The Comfort Letter comes from a document that must be provided by the auditing firms to give assurance to investors — that any significant risks are known and have been made plain. You have an obligation to those investors. And none of that has gone away.
Everybody lives in a web of mutual obligations, duties and connections.
I think if you try to live without a historical context, it’s easy to feel lost. These books can help you not to get lost. And, in addition, they’re just great fun.
Was it challenging to secure the rights to republish Solmssen’s work?
We have enormous gratitude toward Arthur’s three sons — Arthur Jr., Peter and Kurt. Tivoli Books was just starting out. They didn’t know me, but they’ve been incredibly supportive and took a flier on us. We’re doing everything we possibly can to repay their trust and generosity.
I went to them and said, “Look, this is what I’m up to. I love your dad’s books. They’re out of print. Obviously, I’m not Simon & Schuster or Random House, but I love the books, and I can bring them back.” And they gave me a shot. For that, I’ll be eternally grateful. Tivoli Books probably couldn’t have existed without their faith and confidence.
Do you accept submissions, and how do you typically find the books you publish?
We do seek new materia — in particular novels, memoirs and even nonfiction of a literary nature. We care most passionately about the quality of the writing and the voice.
I’m certainly open to any worthy manuscript. We definitely want to publish new work going forward, even as we continue bringing back these wonderful, forgotten works. This is not a museum. We’re not just curating the works of the past, as much as we value it.
What we hope to build is a vigorous publishing house that engages with its time through the works of its time.
What tends to catch your eye in a manuscript?
We want to publish smart books for smart people, well-rounded people. There are aspects of society that are very important in our lives, yet they are undercovered in the literature of our time. And business is an example of that.
We’re open to almost anything, as long as it’s written with passion and intelligence. We like humor as well. I’m not interested in much of anything if it doesn’t have a sense of humor.
If you don’t have a sense of humor, I’m not sure how the hell you get through life. I know there are very serious novels that aren’t trying to be funny, but we like humor, and we’re reassured by its presence.
The basis of humor is seeing likeness among dislike things, and to me that’s a literary talent. So, we look for that.
What’s your mission behind Tivoli Books?
I have sons who are 28. I just want to get young people interested in these books and be reminded that there are books that do a lot of different things and answer a lot of needs just as they’re used to quality streaming television.
What kind of support does Tivoli Books need to keep going and growing?
We have a lot of people congratulating us on what we’re doing. And a lot of people are hoping we’ll publish their novel or another book they’ve written. And my one thing I would say to all of them is that if you’d like Tivoli Books to persist, and if you want to see books like these continue to re-emerge from the mists of time, go to our website, buy a book, read it, and let me know what you think.
It’s not an easy thing to launch a publishing venture. It depends on readers who are willing to buy some books. So that would be an enormous help to us.
Last words
If you’d like to support Tivoli Books, purchasing one of their titles is simple and affordable. Both paperback and e-book editions are available on their website, with e-books priced at just $9.
For writers interested in submitting their work, the best first step is to visit www.tivolibooks.com/manuscript_submission/ and send a brief email outlining your manuscript. Before sending the full manuscript, the publisher prefers a short summary of your story to determine if it’s a good fit.
