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.

December Potpourri

Lots to catch up on--I haven't done a potpourri or roundup since RIP!

Anyway, apart from the Classics, here's what I've been reading:

Taste, by Stanley Tucci - I loved his CNN tour of Italy so much I watched it twice and then couldn't wait for Christmas to get his book. I listened to this foodie memoir, read by the author, and then asked for the book for Christmas for the recipes and to reread it. We're contemporaries, he is a few years younger than me, so it was so much fun to remember life in the 60s and 70s and 80s. A thoroughly enjoyable book.

Ribbons of Scarlet: A Novel of the French Revolution's Women, by Kate Quinn, et al - each chapter is authored by a different writer and features the story of a different woman, although the varioius women do show up in each other's stories. There is the wife of a philosopher, a sister of the King of France, a fruit seller who becomes a revolutionary, an artistocratic lady and they are all interesting and each story well written and compelling. It proves the notion that everyone has a story that deserves to be told, and I really enjoyed reading about the Revolution from the female perspective.

A Game of Birds and Wolves: The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II, by Simon Parkin - this was a great follow-on to my reading about WWII code-breaking, and was an absolutely fascinating non-fiction. The Birds and Wolves were the German submarines that hunted down Allied ships using the strategy and techniques of a wolf pack (collaborative) and the fleets of submarines were given names of birds. The Wrens and their naval leader devised a game board on which they mapped the movements of the German subs and figured out the wolf-pack strategy and developed techniques for combating it. Riveting stuff! The pictures alone are fascinating. Now I am interested in the Battle of the Atlantic, and to that end have a copy of The Cruel Sea, by Nicholas Monsarrat, published in 1951, that I plan to read in 2022.

Farewell Mr Puffin: A small boat voyage to Iceland, by Paul Heiney - this was a gift from my brother Colin, who knows of my interest in birds, especially puffins, and sailing. Now I am eager to visit Iceland. It was a wonderful adventure, travel non-fiction book, filled with details of doing a passage (from just north of London), up the eastern coast of Britain and on northwest to Iceland. I particularly liked hearing about the various ports he laid up in, his various crews along the way, and the pubs and food eaten therein. Sadly, he only saw one puffin in an area abundant in puffins, but that was just bad luck. Really enjoyed this book and whetted my appetite for travel.

Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas (#12 in Jane Austen Mysteries), by Stephanie Barron - I wanted to do a bit of Christmas reading this year and so dived into this wonderful novel after finishing #13 in the series, Jane and the Waterloo Map. It was great fun, despite the killjoys of Jane's brother James and his Mary Musgrove-esque wife, Mary. I particularly enjoyed Jane and Cassandra's gift of a doll with all the trimmings that they gave (over a period of days) to their niece, Caroline, one of James's daughters.

The Best Worst Christmas, by Kate Forster - this was an Audible freebie for members and I was looking for a light, bright Christmasy story that wasn't too treacly, and this was perfect. Loved all the characters, from the world-weary heroine back in England after living in Sydney for years, and her high-school boyfriend, now a doctor, and their parents. Very fun and festive.

The Stolen Lady, by Laura Morelli - this was a birthday gift from my daughter Sarah, who knows I love Morelli's books. As with The Night Portrait, by the same author, this combines the Italian Renaissance with WWII. This time, Anne, a typist working at the Louve, assists the curators in hiding the Mona Lisa and other art treasures from the musuem from the invading Nazis. The other half of the story chronicles the painting of the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo née Gheradini from the perspective of Leonardo da Vinci and Bellina, Lisa's lifelong maid. I absolutely loved visiting Milan and Florence in the early 1500s, as well as tracking the hiding places of the Louve artwork across France in the 1940s. I cannot wait to get back to both countries!

Winter Solstice, by Rosamunde Pilcher - according to GoodReads I read this book about 7 years ago, and I definitely had a copy in my stacks, but I honestly remember nothing about it except the tragedy that provided the catalyst for the bulk of the novel. I absolutely loved (re)reading it. Loved all the characters, the setting, north of Inverness in the winter, and the message of hope and rejuvenation in the bleak midwinter. An excellent Christmas story. I loved it so much I just started rereading The Shell Seekers, which I remember much better though I read it over 30 years ago when it first came out.

That's my roundup. Thankfully I am off work again this week, which means lots of reading and puzzle time. Happy Holidays to my blogging friends around the world. May your 2022 be filled with good health and good books.