Dog Days of Summer

Three Sisters Garden in July

Garden Notes

It happens every year, August hits and I am ready to harvest and move on to other things, like working on the Civil War Underground Railroad quilt (lying dormant since May) and practicing the piano. But, there is a lot of work to do before I hang up my gardening apron for the season.

I picked a colander of Anaheim peppers yesterday, roasted, peeled, diced, and froze enough for three pots of green chili. I expect to do the same in another week and then a third time before I start donating peppers to the local food bank. I have loads of jalapenos, which I will pickle, and then I need to figure out what to do with the poblanos, which my son insisted I plant. Maybe a multi-pepper salsa...

The tomatoes are coming in, so that means I will be making tomato sauce next week and the week after to fill the freezer with sauce for the winter. I use tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and herbs from the garden, only needing to buy celery and balsamic vinegar to add some punch to the sauce.

The zucchini is doing what it does best, and I've been making zucchini bread as well as adding it to a wonderful pasta salad recipe in which I parboil diced carrots and zucchini and add them to diced artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, peas, diced bell pepper, and spiral pasta with a vinaigrette and a splash of lemon juice. I have my eye on a high-altitude chocolate zucchini cake that sounds amazing.

Our Three Sisters Garden seems to be doing okay--we planted the corn first, and the tassels are darkening nicely, meaning we can pick corn maybe next week. The pinto beans have lots of pods--I've never grown pinto beans before, but I read that you need to wait until the pods dry out before you harvest them. The yellow squash went in last and is just now flowering. This was an experiment this year, and I devoted only one raised bed to see how the Three Sisters would do. If you're interested in Three Sisters gardening method, here's a good description: Plant a Three Sisters Garden: Corn, Beans, and Squash | The Old Farmer's Almanac, although I planted pinto beans instead of pole beans mainly because I wanted to see if I could!

The native flower garden is looking a bit tired, probably from the repetitive strings of 90+degree days that Colorado has endured this summer. I am letting most of the plants wither instead of deadheading so that they drop their seeds and spread their goodness for next year. It may look tired, but the pollinators are still working the blossoms that are left...and I did see a Monarch butterfly this morning. So, happiness all around.

Reading Notes

I'm in the middle of quite a few books right now, so not much completed to talk about...

Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler - very short but very enjoyable. Literally, three days in June - before the wedding, the day of the wedding, and the day after the wedding. Great premise in which the story of Gail, the main character, her ex-husband Max, and their daughter Debbie unfolds as Debbie gets married. 

I haven't actually read a lot of Tyler--I had mixed feelings about Vinegar Girl, her take on Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew--and I read The Accidental Tourist so long ago, I can't really remember if I liked it all that much. But Three Days in June was a fun respite from the long books that are currently filling my reading life. And I did really like the ending! That makes all the difference.

My friend Pam Mingle recommended a couple of Mrs. Mallory mysteries because she knew I would enjoy them and she was right. I started with Mrs. Mallory and the Fatal Legacy, by Hazel Holt. Here is the GoodReads blurb:

When Shelia Malory ran into her old college chum, Beth, now a bestselling novelist, she expected a pleasant lunch, some reminiscing, and a little harmless gossip. What she didn't expect was her friend to wind up dead shortly after their meeting. Now Sheila must act as literary executer, which means sifting through Beth's papers and letters, writing her biography, and preparing her short stories for press. But in her attempt to keep her friend's work alive, she discovers something deadly...the means and motives for murder!

And Mrs. Malory will have to read between the lines to find out the truth, before someone else dies for this legacy...

Hazel Holt was actually Barbara Pym's friend, colleague, biographer, and literary executor, making this mystery a bit meta.

It was a fun, easy, relaxing read set mostly in London, circa 2000. Seemed like the same world that Rosamunde Pilcher's and Josephine Tey's books describe. 

Travel Notes

Gearing up for two trips, one in September and one in October. 

We'll be going to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat festival again this year just after Labor Day. We are adding time to visit a couple of cool looking gardens north of Tacoma as well as the Glass Museum in Tacoma, plus birding sites between Tacoma and Port Townsend. Look for a travelogue mid-September!

In October, I am going to Baltimore for the JASNA Annual General Meeting, and then my husband is joining me for sightseeing in Baltimore after the AGM and then three days in Gettysburg where I can put all that Civil War reading I've been doing to good use. Fingers crossed for a travelogue in mid-October.

Enjoy the rest of these Dog Days of Summer.

Heirloom Gardener and Washington Black

The Heirloom Gardener, by John Forti - I've been following John Forti, the Heirloom Gardener, on Facebook and Instagram for a few years, and I always enjoy his posts, which range from seasonal markers to info on native plants and their significance in American history and society to tips on kitchen and garden craft. I got his book as a requested gift and have slowly been reading it over the past couple of months. 

The chapters, A to Z, are short essays and are illustrated with woodcut drawings. A perfect nonfiction read to supplement the various novels I usually am reading simultaneously. I learned a lot and found reading this book to be so relaxing, enriching, and soul-satisfying.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan - I learned about the mini-series based on this book from Susan at The Cue Card and was so intrigued by the premise that I decided to read the book before watching the mini-series. Here's the GoodReads blurb:

Washington Black is an eleven-year-old field slave who knows no other life than the Barbados sugar plantation where he was born. When his master's eccentric brother chooses him to be his manservant, Wash is terrified of the cruelties he is certain await him. But Christopher Wilde, or "Titch," is a naturalist, explorer, scientist, inventor, and abolitionist.

He initiates Wash into a world where a flying machine can carry a man across the sky; where two people, separated by an impossible divide, might begin to see each other as human; and where a boy born in chains can embrace a life of dignity and meaning. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, Titch abandons everything to save him.

What follows is their flight along the eastern coast of America, and, finally, to a remote outpost in the Arctic, where Wash, left on his own, must invent another new life, one which will propel him further across the globe.

From the sultry cane fields of the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, Washington Black tells a story of friendship and betrayal, love and redemption, of a world destroyed and made whole again--and asks the question, what is true freedom?

It was an intriguing story, which at times almost felt like science fiction. Wash is a brilliant boy--a self-taught engineer and marine biologist. He carries not only the burden of being a black man in the prejudiced, hostile, dangerous white world of the early 19th century, but he also carries the physical and mental scars of his early enslaved years as well as the guilt of leaving behind those he loved as a boy and who loved and cared for him.

I just read about how the mini-series differs from the book, and while I am usually a purist when it comes to book-to-move adaptations, I think I might like the mini-series even better than the book. The endings are different, so I understand, with the mini-series version more upbeat and hopeful.

July Key Words: Bee Balm, Italian Art in WWII, Civil War Stories

Garden Notes

This week's star native is Bee Balm (aka Wild Bergamot). This fragrant perennial comes in lots of colors, has spikey flowers, and it blooms for a long time. Right now, my native garden is mostly yellow and purple, with my Bee Balm providing the purple canvas on which the yellow blooms can shine. 

Bee Balm is a perfect native alternative to the ever-popular Butterfly Bush, which is actually an import from Asia, which means it may look stunning, but it isn't helping the local ecosystem and is invasive.

Bee Balm is also an edible plant. John Forti, author of The Heirloom Gardener, says:

All aerial parts of the plant can be used fresh. The tender leaves can be chopped finely and added to salads and summer vegetable dishes or made into teas and balms. However, the flowers (particularly the red ones) are my favorite edible part of the plant; they are full of an Earl Grey–like floral nectar and offer a fun kid candy from the garden. They are beautiful frozen into ice cubes for summer drinks or turned into a simple syrup for refreshing cocktails and confections. 

On to Books...

The Last Masterpiece, by Laura Moretti - Moretti is an art historian and historical novelist who focuses on the Renaissance and Italy, and I have read just about all of her books. This latest is set during WWII, featuring two young women, an Austrian and an American, on opposite sides of the war but both working to preserve the art treasures of the Italian Renaissance from destruction and looting during the war.

I loved it. In fact, I think it might be my favorite of Moretti's novels. The Nazi part of the story begins in Florence, with Eva, the Austrian woman, newly arrived with a job to photograph the paintings and sculptures that the German art historians are cataloging and putting into storage, with the help of the local Italian art historians. Her father is actually heading up the operation to store art from around Europe in the Austrian salt mines, and Eva truly believes that the Nazis are trying to preserve and protect the art for the Italians. Turns out she's wrong about that.

Josie is a WAC from Connecticut who is assigned to provide secretarial support to the Monuments Men. In the course of her duties, she comes to learn about and then love Renaissance art. She also learns to love Italy, particularly Florence.

Now I am all primed to finally read Saving Italy, by Robert M. Edsel, who also wrote The Monuments Men, the book on which the movie is based.

The March, by E.L. Doctorow - this is much-lauded novel is about General Sherman's 1864-1865 campaign in which his army of 90k+ subdued Georgia and the Carolinas and helped bring the Civil War to its end. 

Definitely a 5-star book, and not just because of my abiding interest in the Civil War, but because of the breadth and scope of character and story, the insight and compassion, realism and historical accuracy, and eloquence.

Doctorow tells the stories of a cross-section of people involved--the generals and other officers, of course, a smattering of soldiers from both sides, both the brave and the not-so brave. He tells the stories of civilians whose towns, farms, and homes were invaded, sometimes burned, almost always violated. He tells the stories of newly freed African Americans as well those who had enslaved them, and those who are on the periphery of the fighting but still a part of it--the British war correspondent, the itinerant photographer. 

My favorite story was that of a German doctor who came to America to find personal liberty and found himself tending the wounded and dying of both sides. I also loved the story of Pearl, an African American girl whose skin was so pale that she could pass but struggled with whether she wanted to live in the white world as a white woman.

Here's my favorite passage, which stopped me cold, near the end, when Sherman is negotiating terms of surrender with his Confederate counterpart, Joe Johnston.

And so the war had come down to words. It was fought now in terminology across the table. It was contested in sentences. Entrenchment and assaults, drum taps and bugle calls, marches, ambushes, burnings, and pitched battles were transmogrified into nouns and verbs. It is all turned very quiet, Sherman said to Johnson, who not quite understanding, lifted his head to listen.

No cannonball or canister, but has become the language here spoken, the words written down, Sherman thought. Language is war by other means. 

Ragtime is the only other one of the many noteworthy books by Doctorow that I've read, but I mean to remedy that, although some of them seem mighty grim. Any suggestions?

The Glassmaker - Tracy Chevalier

Author Tracy Chevalier not only never repeats herself when it comes to her historical novels, diving into drastically different time periods, locations, and characters with each novel, all that require extensive research, but with her latest, The Glassmaker, she shows a courageous, creative willingness to play with the time/space continuum.

Overwhelmingly, I prefer realism over fantasy in fiction, with just a few magical realism exceptions, so at first I struggled with what Chevalier was doing in The Glassmaker, but the end result was a triumph.

So, what does she do? The Glassmaker tells the story of Orsola Rosso, daughter of a maestro glassmaker in Murano (one of the Venetian islands) in the 1480s. Her family have been glassmakers for generations, with the craft being passed from father to son in a tightly controlled industry. We learn about Orsola's family--her brothers, her savvy mother, her baby sister, and how the family handles the untimely death of her father, who dies during a glassmaking accident. 

We learn how the glass works produced by the Rosso family are sold throughout Europe, through a German middleman, Klingenberg, who resides in Venice. Orsola becomes a glass bead maker herself, one of just a few females who learn to work with glass. We learn that a handsome stranger is hired on to the Rosso workshop and Orsola cannot stop looking at him. 

And then the timeframe of the story shifts from the late 15th century to roughly 100 years later, to the 1570s. Orsola is now a young woman, in love with Antonio, still handsome but no longer a stranger, but not appropriate for the daughter of a glass maestro to marry. 

Plague descends upon Venice and Murano. Orsola and most of her family survive not only the disease but the quarantines enforced on them when members of their household fall ill. Life is difficult, but the family survives and Orsola becomes a skilled bead maker and entrepreneur.

Throughout the rest of the novel, as Orsola ages from a young woman to a wife and mother, then on to middle age and beyond, the time period in which the story is set shifts as well, sometimes by a 100 or so years, sometimes more, taking us from the time when Venice was a trading capital of the world through the time of Casanova and the growth of casinos and Carnival, then the French invasion of Venice and the dissolution of the Republic, then into the wars of the 20th century, and finally to 2020 and Covid.

The Rosso family and Orsola evolve as families do, with births and deaths, marriages and intrigues, jealousies and reconciliations. Their basic family history remains intact--they are a glass-making family, their father died in an accident, they live and work on Murano and visit Venice for business more than pleasure. I found it fascinating that Chevalier was able to tell the story of this family intact as she skipped from timeframe to timeframe, which gets to the heart of why I love stories. The setting is the window dressing, it adds flavor and interest, but the stories of people and how they love, grow, and dream are timeless.

I also think this was a super cool way to tell the history of Venice and glass-making as an industry. I loved hearing about how glass works are made, distributed, sold, and treasured. And, I loved seeing how she handled social changes over time (e.g., a character who was a slave in the 15th century is not a slave in the 20th, but he is still restricted by how others perceive him).

I do think Chevalier was both creative and courageous in how she chose to tell the story of Orsola and her family against the backdrop of the history of Venice, Murano, and the glass-making industry. It took tremendous skill as an author to present both stories in a realistic way. Bravo!

Now I am ready to return to Venice, and this time, I will go to Murano!

Niccolò Rising - Dorothy Dunnett

 Constance at Staircase Wit mentioned Niccolò Rising, by Dorothy Dunnett, as a potential summer read, and that reminded me that it was on my own TBR shelf so I decided that it would be my first big book of the summer, clocking in at 470 pages.. 

Book one in a trilogy, it is set in 1460 in Bruges, with forays into Geneva, Milan, and the Abruzzi region of the Italian peninsula. I confess that I struggled through the first 60 or so pages--there are a lot of characters, from all over Medieval Europe, and it took me awhile to even figure out who the main character was and whose story was being told.

Part of the confusion lay in the fact that the main character, Niccolò of the title, was called Claes and then occasionally Nicholas, and very rarely Niccolò. 

Claes is a distant poor relation of the widowed owner of a textile company in Bruges and works in the dye shop (yes, he works with the urine used to set the dyes). He is a clown and comic--hanging out with the son of the widow and other members of the firm--playing pranks, getting into outrageous mischief, and being beaten regularly for his antics.

But there is so much more to Claes. He is a charmer with a winning smile framed by adorable dimples, he is big and strong, quick and energetic, both mentally and physically. He is basically a savant when it comes to business--able to see the big picture, able to grasp how obstacles can be manipulated into opportunities, able to rapidly do the math and make canny speculations. Despite his seeming gregariousness, he can keep his own counsel as well as the secrets of others, which turns out to be a very profitable activity. And he is, apparently, phenomenal in bed. Women adore him.

I am hard pressed to come up with a similar character in literature. Dare I say that he is unique? Part Machiavelli, part Harpo Marx, part Warren Buffet, Claes who becomes Nicholas (his given name, Claes was a nickname) as his fortunes rise gives the reader a rollicking good time.

I won't give you any spoilers, but suffice it to say that he survives an avalanche (which he may or may not have triggered on purpose), several assassination attempts including a harrowing experience in a wine cask in a canal which is on fire, and an absolutely hilarious ride on the back of a hairless ostrich...but you have to read to almost the end of the book to reach this scene.

Final note: Nicholas could have coined the phrase, "revenge is a dish best served cold." It isn't until near the end of the book that it is revealed that Nicholas has been playing the long game...in fact, a very long game.

Now, I need to get and read book two in the series, The Spring of the Ram.

As I said at the beginning, this is the first book for the Big Book Summer Challenge, 2025.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Reread & Blanketflower

Blanketflower

First, a Garden Note

This week's star native is Gaillardia, known to her friends as Blanketflower. She loves full sun and is very low maintenance. She spreads quickly and is often used to restore damaged areas. And, she is so pretty.

Fun Fact: Gaillardia even has her own moth...

"A moth (Schinia masoni) camouflages itself for protection on the heads of blanketflower - the head and thorax of the moth blend with the ray flowers, while the crimson wings blend with the disc flowers." From Blanketflower

Now we can talk Top Ten 

Being in the middle of a bunch of books but not having finished anything since the Ina memoir, I thought I would do this week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This theme was super easy for me--only ten?! I am a rereader and so like to revisit favorites regularly.

1. The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame - this was one of several books my Dad would read to me and my siblings when we were young. I've reread it as an adult, but not in a few decades. Cannot wait to spend time with Ratty, Mole, Badger, and Mr. Toad.

2. Middlemarch, by George Eliot - one of my all-time favorite novels. I have read it either four or five times, and it is a treat every time. I reread it in 2016--can you believe that's already almost 10 years ago. Here's my post from that reading.

3. North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell - my favorite novel by a favorite novelist. I have 18 posts in which I discuss N&S to some degree, with an in-depth, multi-part series on how it compares to Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

4. The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier - Chevalier is a favorite author and this was the first book I read by her, decades ago. I would like to enjoy it again.

5. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon - I didn't actually finish the series, getting bogged down in book eight and never actually recovering. But...my husband and I are putting together a trip next summer that will take us on foot and by boat through the heart of Outlander country, from Oman to Inverness (along the Caledonian Canal), so rereading Outlander will be required reading before the trip.

6. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck - another favorite novel from a favorite novelist. I love the setting and the characters, the rich and varied plot, the historical stuff, and the heart and writing. Here's my post from 2014.

7. Favorite Dickens's novels - see, I am cheating because I want to reread Pickwick Papers, Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit, and David Copperfield.

8. The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer - my first Heyer and so my sentimental favorite. I've read it at least three times and my copy is literally falling apart because it was well-used when I acquired it. Must get new, pretty copy!

9. The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien - I read this many times as a teen and for some reason have a hankering to revisit Middle Earth. Will see how long this yearning lasts, but I do want to spend time with Bilbo.

10. All of Austen - as an active JASNA member, rereading Austen is de rigueur and never a chore. I no longer keep track of how many times I have read each of the novels. Not enough fingers.

I love spending time with old friends. How about you? 

Fiona and Ina

 

Fiona, the sentry guard dragon

Last year, I spent my gardening budget on installing the native garden, the plants and all the fixin's, such as mulch and paving stones. This year's budget went mostly towards acquiring Fiona, our newly installed sentry guard dragon. It took three men at the garden store to wrestle her into our SUV, but my engineer husband and I were able to get her out of the car and into the garden on our own. We devised a ramp using a step ladder and plywood and utilized a dolly and voila, she is now on guard duty.

One of my Australian cousins informed me that dragons in gardens bring luck, so I did a bit of searching and found some interesting tidbits (from the Magic Bricks blog) that are relevant to our dragon and that make me happy:

Dragons hold a special significance in Chinese tradition. It is a mythical creature known to bring good luck and fortune. Feng Shui dragon statues are placed in houses, shops and offices to attract success, abundance and prosperity.

A dragon statue holding a crystal is quite popular. The crystal is referred to as the wish fulfilment jewel. This type of dragon helps build hope. 

You can place a dragon statue in the east direction of your house to invite success and abundance. The east direction of your house also governs health. Placing a Feng Shui dragon in this direction promotes good health. 

I'm not sure whether this means the dragon should be facing east or should be on the eastern side of the house. Our dragon is to the south of the house, but we're also in good shape as the blog says this direction maintains peace and harmony at home.

Enough About Dragons...On to Books

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten - I seem to be on a celebrity memoir kick lately, but I just finished listening to another one and really enjoyed it. Our repertoire of dinners includes several of Ina's, and hers is one of the cooking shows I fondly remember because I learned something about cooking by watching it. I really enjoyed hearing about her life with Jeffrey, how she jumped from working in the White House to owning The Barefoot Contessa, and how she built her business (from the shop to cookbooks to TV). I loved hearing about her time in France, both as a newlywed and later when she bought an apartment there. It was tough to read about her childhood and her cold, demanding, and (at times) abusive parents, but this was obviously a huge part of making her who she became.

I especially like the title of the memoir, which Ina explains at the end of the book. For most of her life, she attributed her success to being lucky when in actuality she worked hard, was true to herself and her values, had fun, and was ready to take advantage of opportunities when they came her way. 

I just started watching her latest TV show, Be My Guest, and guess what, I learned something. I think this weekend I might make the Halibut with Herbed Butter from episode 1.

Hope you're having a wonderful summer (or winter for those down under). 

Happy belated solstice, and happy reading!

 

 

Evening Primrose and Flight of Dreams

Garden Notes

This week's star native is evening primrose. The particular species I planted last year is Oenothera howardii (Howard's evening primrose), which is a Colorado native. It didn't bloom at all last year, but it started last week and is stealing the spotlight with its vibrant trumpet-shaped flowers. 

One of the things I love about it is that it requires very little water but looks lush and tropical. All of the descriptions in books and online say that it blooms in the evening and overnight (good for nighttime pollinators), but mine bloom all day long!

Apparently, the entire plant is edible and has played an important part in indigenous medicine. I found some online instructions that detail how to make evening primrose oil from the blossoms, but I think I have enough on my plate right now before I even think about going down that path!

Isn't she a beauty?

 I am growing it to support the local ecosystem, and its beauty is my reward.

Book Notes

Flight of Dreams, by Ariel Lawhon - this is a 2016 novel by one of my favorite authors. I loved her The Frozen River and Code Name Hélène and was completely enthralled with Flight of Dreams. Here's the GoodReads blurb:

On the evening of May 3rd, 1937, ninety-seven people board the Hindenburg for its final, doomed flight to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Among them are a frightened stewardess who is not what she seems; the steadfast navigator determined to win her heart; a naive cabin boy eager to earn a permanent spot on the world’s largest airship; an impetuous journalist who has been blacklisted in her native Germany; and an enigmatic American businessman with a score to settle. Over the course of three hazy, champagne-soaked days their lies, fears, agendas, and hopes for the future are revealed.

The novel takes place from the moment of takeoff to the aftermath when the survivors are still struggling to deal with the fact that they did survive. Yes, there were survivors--62 out of the 97 did survive the explosion and resulting fireball that consumed the German airship. 

Interesting Fact: The Hindenburg survival rate was 64% while that of the Titanic was only 32%.

It took everything I had not to read about the Hindenburg disaster until after I finished the book because virtually all of the characters were actual passengers or crew aboard the airship, and I didn't want any spoilers. The author did say that she invented the various story threads that connect the various characters, making for a rich, interesting, realistic, and compelling (i.e., nail-biting) fictional account of the final voyage of the airship.

What I found super interesting is that the term airship is totally appropriate--everything was nautical except they were going through air instead of water. I would love to see even a scale model of the interior. Flying on the Hindenburg, or on other airships, was really the height of luxury travel in the day. Unlike the Titanic, there was no steerage or 2nd class--every passenger ticket was a first-class ticket.

This is one of those books I practically couldn't put down--Lawhon is an exceptionally good histoirical novelist, using real events and real people to catapult her into a marvelous story that really could've happened. Another 5-star novel from Lawhon.

Now, I am wondering about her novel I Was Anastasia. I don't buy into conspiracy theories and have never embraced the idea that Anastasia Romanov escaped the fate of the rest of her family, but I trust Lawhon to tell a good story based on known facts...so maybe?

June, Glorious June

 

Rocky Mt Penstemon in the Native Garden

Garden Notes

The June-gloom that started the month meant lots of rain for the emerging garden. Here are two views of the native garden I put in last year--almost eveything came back with just a few bare spots that a trip to the Denver Botanical Gardens annual plant sale enabled me to fill in. The pollinators have been working hard in the garden already, and today I saw two Swallowtail butterflies stop by for a drink.

I grew just about all my flowers from seed this year, with a few pots with Mother's Day offerings. I have a blue garden that I am slowly filling in, and the raised bed veggie garden is looking promising.

Books, Books, Books

What I Ate in One Year, by Stanley Tucci - after months on the library wait list, I finally got to listen to Stanley Tucci read his latest memoir. I loved his earlier book, Taste, which was about his early life, family, acting career, and, of course, food. I also loved the CNN show, Searching for Italy, and was so disappointed when it was cancelled. This book, as the title screams, is a year in the life and chronicles not only what he ate and where and what he cooked and why and who for, but is the year leading up to the taping of his current food travelogue on National Geographic, Tucci in Italy. I've watched the first three episodes (new ones drop on Sunday nights), and it is wonderful. I love Italian food, I love Italian history, I love visiting Italy, and Stanley Tucci is passionate about what he loves. A fun read!

The Third Gilmore Girl, by Kelly Bishop - Gilmore Girls is such a favorite. I've watched it multiple times over the years, and it never gets stale. Kelly Bishop was the perfect Emily Gilmore, so it was a no-brainer to get on the library waitlist to listen to her talk about her life and career. 

Coincidently, Kelly was born in Colorado Springs, my hometown, and was the same age as my sister, although my parents didn't move there until she was in first grade. She moved to Denver with her family and studied ballet. At nineteen, she headed for NYC--rejected by the American Ballet Theatre, she worked as a dancer on Broadway for years and was the original Sheila Bryant in A Chorus Line, for which she won a Tony in 1976. She transitioned to acting as dancers' careers have an expiration date. Her first major-ish role was as Baby's mother in Dirty Dancing, and she had lots of roles in TV, movies, and plays on Broadway until she hit the jackpot with Gilmore Girls. The show's creator, Amy Sherman Palladino, did the intro to the book, and they were and remain fast friends.

I loved hearing about Kelly's career and the life of an entertainer. Definitely a fun book to listen to.

The Shell House Detectives, by Emylia Hall - Kathy at Reading Matters recently posted about this book, and since it sounded like something I would definitely enjoy, I promptly got it from my library and devoured it. Set in Cornwall in a small town, two unlikely people find themselves working together to solve the case of the disappearing trophy wife. Jayden is a former Leeds cop who has relocated to his wife's hometown after the death of his partner, and Ally is a widow grieving for her police sergeant husband who died about a year earlier. The other townfolk include Saffron, the cafe owner, Tim, the bumbling local cop and his boss, as well as the nasty rich newcomer and his boorish brother. I loved every minute I spent reading this book--first in what promises to be a good series. The characters and setting were marvelous, the writing decent, and the plot interesting. Thanks, Kathy, for a great recommendation. 

The London House, by Katherine Reay - I really wanted to love this one, and I did in parts, but I also had some issues. The basic idea is that Caroline, an American with a rich English father, goes to London to discover the truth about her great aunt. An old boyfriend of Caroline's who is now a historian is writing a story about how Caroline's aunt defected to the Nazis while living in Paris during WWII, and Caroline and her father are distraught at the thought of the world knowing this. The London House is Caroline's father's ancestral home (one of two actually) -- Caroline's mother, now divorced from her father, is living there and gives Caroline stacks of letters and diaries that the disgraced aunt's twin sister saved.

If this sounds like a soap opera, hang on...there's more. There's a love triangle between the twin sisters (i.e., Caroline's great aunts), there's misplaced pride and guilt that wreaked generations of marriages and parent/child relationships, and there's the mystery of why the old boyfriend and Caroline stopped being friends. 

I really enjoyed the history part of this book, and the multiple timelines, and the research that the contemporary characters did. I really enjoyed visiting London and Paris with the modern characters. And, I enjoyed the fashion angle during World War II in Paris, especially since I watched The New Look about Christian Dior and Coco Chanel so hearing about Schiaparelli's fashion house was super interesting, especially that Wallis Simpson's Lobster Dress from the 1937 collection.

I think this novel would have worked much better if the author hadn't succumbed to the idea that every story needs to be a love story. And, families that are as damaged as Caroline's can't heal as fast as this one did. Finding out the truth about Caroline's great-aunt fixed everything--the coldness that had presumably destroyed her parents' marriage and that shrouded her in a cloak of self-doubt and anxiety was suddenly gone and everything was rosy and happy. I don't mind happy endings, but a little reality check seemed to be called for here.

Topic: Slavery - The Eulogist and James

 I just finished two books that deal directly with slavery--both were gut wrenching, powerful, and left me angry that we are still fighting the racism, ignorance, self-righteousness, and greed associated with this most heinous thing. Sometimes if feels as if the Civil War will never end.

The Eulogist, by Terry Gamble, was the May selection for the GoodReads True Book Talk group. I wanted to provide the GoodReads blurb, but it contains way to many spoilers...glad I didn't read it before I read the book!  So basically, the story is about an Irish family that emigrates to the U.S. in the early part of the nineteenth century. 

The three children of the family--two sons and a daughter--make their way in Ohio, mainly Cincinnati. The main character is really the daughter, Olivia (aka Livvie), with older brother James marrying well and becoming a successful businessman, and the second brother, Erasmus, charming the socks and everything else off every female he encounters while trying his hand at revival preaching, ferrying people across the Ohio River, and sundry other things.

Livvie is a wonderful heroine--strong willed, plain, intelligent, and interested in how things work. She is a woman of science and a woman of conscience. Being a woman of conscience, she is compelled to try to help slaves to freedom, putting her own life and that of her family in danger. Being a woman of conscience requires being a woman of courage as well.

I will definitely be checking out other books by this author.

And then there's James, by Percival Everett. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in May, and it is clear why. Definitely the best book I've read this year and the best in a long time. 

James is the story of the slave Jim, Huck's companion in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Everett begins pretty much where Twain did, but the story of James--he rechristens himself--is so much more than Huck's sidekick. I don't want to provide a synopsis but suffice it to say that James's journey is convoluted--full of forward motion, backtracking, false starts, near escapes, heartbreaking and soul-wrenching loss, and the absolute certainty that he is a man of integrity, dignity, intelligence, and heart. James's journey is America's journey. Just as James's story didn't end with the last page of the novel, America's journey is ongoing as well, convoluted, full of false starts and stuttering steps.

I absolutely loved what the author did with language in this book. I'm not the biggest fan of dialect in books, but dialect in this book is essential to both the plot and the themes explored. Brilliant.