The Women by Kristin Hannah

This is historical fiction, a made up story that uses the underlying structure of what happened to women who enlisted as nurses in Vietnam and served in combat theaters there. I am not a combat veteran, but I have provided mental health care to men and women who fit that bill for every major U.S. military operation since WWI, and this book ticks all the boxes of what that experience is to live through. Frances "Frankie" McGrath grew up in white Southern California privilege of the 1950's. Her father idolizes the men in her family that went to war, and her brother is a Naval Academy graduate who is headed to Vietnam. Women in Frankie's family do lunch--they make a difference in their homes, not the world. So when she impulsively joins the Army upon leaving nursing school without consulting a soul, she surprises everyone, including herself. Most shocking to her is that it is an embarrassment to her parents--they literally tell their friends that she is studying abroad. The rest of the first half of the book reflects all the things we know about combat experiences and the war in general in Vietnam--the manipulated message about the danger of communism in the region, the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, the under resourced military hospitals and the overwhelming casualties they routinely handled, the reality on the ground and the distorted story being told at home, the poor training of troops and the lack of cohesion among them, and the persisting in a losing war to save face politically at home. It is all there. Then there is the home coming. The second half of the book is about combat veterans coming home when it doesn't go at all well. Frankie's family is ashamed of her, the VA turns her away because women didn't serve in Vietnam, and it is up to her fellow combat nurses to get her back on her feet. I found this part of the story very emotional and evocative of the stories patients have told me. I do get very wrapped up in a novel when I read it, but I rarely cry. I cried at several junctures in the back half of this book, she nailed it so perfectly. I would recommend this book to everyone. I recently read Stanley Karnow's telling of the Vietnam War, which is factually correct but emotionally void--while fiction, this puts you near the action, and leaves you with a sense of what it might have been like to go through it.

Château Frontenac, Québec City, Québec

My mom and dad honeymooned in Québec City in 1957 and we returned 67 years later so that my mother could re-experience it after burying my father on what had been their wedding day. They married on a Saturday and made their way to the Château Frontenac on a Sunday and so did we. The hotel opened its doors in 1893 and is situated in Old Québec, within the historic district's Upper Town, on the southern side of Place d'Armes. The Château Frontenac was designed by Bruce Price, and was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company as one of their grand railway hotels. The Châteauesque architectural style used throughout the hotel would later serve as a template for other Canadian grand railway hotels erected in the late-19th to early-20th century. The central fortress-like tower design is derived from medieval châteaux found throughout France's Loire Valley. These elements include the hotel's asymmetrical profile, with steeply pitched roofs, massive circular and polygonal towers and turrets, ornate gables and dormers, and tall chimneys. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1981. The Château Frontenac is on a hill and it borders the Saint Lawrence River. We opted not to dine in the upscale restaurant, but rather in the bistro, and the views of both the river and the walkway alongside it were beautiful. It was not the first large building on the site. The first one was built during the 1780s, and was known as the Château Haldimand, named after the Governor of Quebec who ordered its construction. It was demolished in 1892 to make way for the present hotel. My parents paid $15 a night for their accomodations in 1957 and we paid $14/hour for parking today. My mother didn't remember much about her time here, but then notes that maybe that is because it was her honeymoon.

Invitation To A Banquet by Fucshia Dunlop

Fuchsia Dunlop left England and went to Chengdu as a student in 1990 and she basically fell fully and deeply in love with the culture and food of China. She is uniquely suited to telling this story because she is a deeply seasoned outsider who has taken on the task of educating non-Asians about the cuisine of China. She speaks, reads, and writes Mandarin, she is an award winning author of cookbooks of Chinese cuisine that are published not just in the West but also in China, and she has taken scores of western tourists on food tours of China. She starts off by educating us that we very likely have no idea about the cuisine of China. First of all, there’s no such thing as “Chinese” food. China is a country, but it’s the size of a continent, and it boasts a culinary diversity which exceeds that of many actual continents. Second, the dishes you encounter in the average Chinese restaurant over here bear about as much resemblance to real Chinese food--the only way to glimpse the real deal is to eat in restaurants located with high concentrations of Chinese immigrants, where there are things like blood and offal frequenting the menu. Then, if we didn't already know it, we learn that China is a food-obsessed society. People are always talking about their next meal. People talk about it incessantly. The Chinese equivalent of talking about the weather, a way of making polite chitchat with strangers, is to mention a restaurant that you like, or a meal that you’re looking forward to. A standard way of saying “hello” in Mandarin and Cantonese is “have you eaten yet?” and it produces a natural conversational opening to begin immediately discussing food. Perhaps most uncanny to foreigners, Chinese people will sometimes discuss their next meal while they are in the middle of eating a fancy dinner. Dozens of gorgeous little dishes spread around them, chomping or slurping away at exquisite cuisine, and happily chattering about what they plan to eat tomorrow. This I can relate to--what we in the west do not appreciate is the breadth and depth of the Chinese appreciation of food contains. Dunlop helps each and every reader understand why duck tongues and goose feet hold special sway with Chinese diners--they are seeking a balanced array of flavors and textures when they come to the table and all of them are valued. Nothing is too gross--in fact, it is valued. I loved reading about this, I learned a ton, even though I have traveled in China in multiple different regions, and it also made me very clear that I will never reach this level as a food appreciator. I can completely relate to the focus on vegetable dishes, having a balance of food on the table, serving an overabundance of dishes to get the right balance, but that is where it starts for most Chinese and mostly ends for me. This is a bit overly detailed and could have used better editing to weave the chapters better together, but it is the best description of what an outsider sees--and misses--when they look in on this cuisine.

Le Hobbit, Québec City, Québec

We came to Québec City after my father's burial and while it is not my usual style, we had done very little to prepare for this leg of the trip--a shame, because the whole idea was to have a little levity after such a somber event. Food and travel have been unifying themes for our family over the years, but I just never got around to getting too deep in the weeds of dinner planning. The thing that we did not really know is that it is hard to get around certain parts of the city, and not having traveled with my mom in about a decade, just how hard it is to get around when you are 90, so how close you can drive and park to a place is a real issue. We opted out of our first choice option because it didn't fit the bill on the later criteria and landed on this. The restaurant is located on Rue St. Jean, one of the oldest and most populat street in Québec City. It is located on the outside of the fortifications so there is less traffic and easier to park--except on the weekends, when the street becomes pedestrian only--luckily there is a public lot just a block away. The restaurant is tucked into a converted house that was built in 1846 and the restaurant is opened since 1970. The link to Tolkien's book is hard to miss, but it really is a traditional French bistro, with an interesting seasonal small plates menu. We chose to share, and while there were hits and misses amongst them, some dishes were very innovative, and we very much enjoyed our meal.

An Emancipation Of The Mind by Matthew Stewart

This is one telling of the journey the United States took in the 19th century from a country with slaves to one without. The author frames this as one based on religious principles, but I would say it really was based on the premise of white supremacy. The driving force in American politics in the decades after the American Revolution was the rise of an arrogant, ruthless, parasitic oligarchy in the South, built on a foundation of Christian religion and a vision of permanent, God-ordained inequality. Their goal in seceding in 1860 was to undo the basic ideals of the American republic and keep their wealth. From 1770 to 1860, religion in America underwent a massive shift. The number of churches exploded, North and South, and soon most of these churches were using depictions of slavery from the Bible. There is also rampant polygamy and stoning for relatively minor offenses which were assiduously not endorsed, but slavery is definitely not contrary to Old Testament values. The abolitionists clearly needed help. Enter freethinking Germans whose radical republican philosophy underpinned the failed European revolutions of 1848. The ideas they espoused were more harmonious with New Testament values that were espoused by Jesus, as well as quite irreligious ideas that swayed major anti-slavery players in America. The very interesting thing about this argument of how Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln came to see eye to eye is how familiar it sounds today. The GOP is the party of white supremacy, and the legacy of the South, and the evangelical church is no longer adherent to the teachings of Christ, who was basically too woke for them.

Rembrandt Etchings, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Québec City

It was a rare treat that we saw-- the Rembrandt Etchings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen were on view when we were in Québec City this past summer. Rembrandt was profoundly innovative and revolutionized the art of engraving. He adopted a resolutely experimental approach and developed the process to the utmost. Like Dürer, Goya, or Picasso, Rembrandt is regarded as one of the greatest engravers of all time. He produced some of the most celebrated works in the history of the medium and his impact on the discipline is still relevant today.

Rembrandt produced 300 engravings between 1625 and 1665 and 80 of them were on view. Most of the works are etchings, a complex technique in which the image is etched on a copper plate using an acid. For Rembrandt, etching was a full-fledged art form equal to painting that he researched passionately throughout his career. Moreover, almost all of his prints are original works independent of his paintings. The exhibition encompassed all the topics that Rembrandt broached. His self-portraits reconstitute the artist’s biography while his religious prints propose a unique, spectacular interpretation of the Bible. His landscapes reveal an artist of exquisite sensitivity. His portraits and genre scenes display the full diversity of Dutch society at the time. The exhibition also allowed visitors to see Rembrandt in his historic period and environment as a resident of Amsterdam, a thriving, cosmopolitan city and brilliant hub of intellectual and artistic life, and an inhabitant of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, one of the great European powers of the 17th century. It also reveals the vagaries of the artist’s personal life, including the painful loss of loved ones and the serious financial difficulties that darkened his final years.

Parasol Against The Axe by Helen Oyeyemi

To me, this felt more like a play than a book, and more like Waiting For Godot than Death of a Salesman. It’s set in Prague, with the city functioning as backdrop, cipher and, even, at times, narrator; the main characters slip, slide and transmute, and the bit-part players reappear in different roles and get-ups, like actors in a travelling theatre. Time in this city warps and winds backwards, contributing to the sense of the novel, and Prague itself, as a switchback ride: a “non-stop paternoster lift” that carries its passengers in circles rather than launching them along straight lines. The themes are love, history, identity, and – most fundamentally of all – the essential subjectivity of the act of reading; the notion that, when one reads a book, one brings everything about them to that book--culture, trauma, history, hopes and dreams, expectations and fears--and inevitably each one discovers something different inside. The story opens on a parched summer weekend in which two women, Hero Tojosoa and Dorothea Gilmartin, converge on Prague for a hen weekend. Hero and Thea were once as thick as thieves; these days they’re not speaking, and their motives for attending the bride-to-be Sofie’s celebration are wildly different and so is their experience. I am 100% sure I did not get this book, but maybe you will, and in any case it is a pleasant ride.

Rivière-du-Loup, Québec, Canada

The day after we all gathered in Northern Maine to say goodbye to my father, we headed to Québec. My reasoning was several fold. First, this is likely to be the last trip my mother makes to a far flung destination, and I didn't want it to be just about burying her spouse--it is true that it was really nice to be back home, to see local relatives of my dad's, and to see her old haunts. However, we buried my dad on what would have been their 67th wedding anniversary, and so to ameliorate the sadness, we took another trip down memory lane--we headed to where they honeymooned. We stopped here en route to Québec City--it had been a quiet journey and we stopped for some sustenance. The Rivière du Loup is a river in eastern Quebec, which empties on the south shore of Saint Lawrence River at the city of Rivière-du-Loup (hence the name--since I live in a town that it named for the state I live in, I cannot disparage this practice--it simplifies things that do not need to be complicated). The name means Wolf's River in French. This name may have come from a native tribe known as "Les Loups" ("The Wolves") or from the many seals, known in French as loup-marin (sea wolves), once found at the river's mouth. Rivière-du-Loup was established in 1673 as the seigneurie of Sieur Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye. The community was incorporated as the village of Fraserville, in honour of early Scottish settler Alexander Fraser, in 1850, and became a city in 1910. The city reverted to its original name, Rivière-du-Loup, in 1919. Between 1850 and 1919, the city saw large increases in its anglophone population. Most of them left the region by the 1950s. Only 1% of the population still speaks English as its first language, which for me is one of the great pleasures of being in Québec. This is a beautiful town, with gorgeous views, and a great start to our Québec trip.

Funny Story by Emily Henry

I keep saying that I do not read in the Romance genre and Emily Henry keeps proving me wrong. Once again, I read (and returned) this book in just a couple of days. It is that rare--for me--book where you pretty much know exactly what will happen from the get go, but you savor the journey to your known destination, none-the-less. Here are the details. Daphne, a children’s librarian, is dumped by her fiancé early on in the story--and while she moved to Michigan and his home town for him, he doesn't seem like that much of a loss. He molded her into the image he had of her, and she enjoyed it while it lasted, she slowly unfurls who she really is as the story progresses. So she is coping with her broken engagement to Peter, who realized too late that he loved his childhood best friend, Petra, and because Petra moves in with Peter, Daphne moves in with Miles, Petra's ex-fiancé. They are quite different but also companionable, and over time she realizes what an unlikeable classist elitist her ex really is, because Miles is a catch. They are both invited to the quickly thrown together wedding plans of Peter and Petra, and they decide to act as a couple to emulate happiness.

Rodney's At 436 Main, Presque Isle, Maine

The front end of our trip held a disappointment--the place that we had eaten morning, noon, and night on our last trip to my parent's hometown--Winnie's--was permanently closed. What?? They had lobster served many different ways AND they had lobster for breakefast, which was one of my spouse's goals on his first trip to Northern Maine. So we had to make do. We did eat at quite a few dining establishments when we were in Presque Isle, and at every single resaurant we were welcomed enthusiastically, even though we were a crowd thirteen, aged 1-90 years old. We had very reasonable meals throughout, lots of lobster, and the food was served quickly and was reasonably priced. The very best meal that we had, though, was here at Rodney's. Almost half of us had lobster rolls, which were delicious, but that was not the only thing we enjoyed. We had a sampling of appetizers, as well as partaking in tasting some local beers, and the whole dining experience was enjoyable.

The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides

This is the story of Captain Cook's final voyage, which was mostly a triumph, except that he was killed in action on his way home. He also did not find a way over the top of North America, which he sought, but we know that was an unfulfillable goal. He was more of a cartographer than anything else, someone who those who followed him could emulate (including the young captain of the Beagle, Robert FitzRoy--these talented captains mapped the world and also furthered science). The part that is controversial about these voyages, that they brought native populations disease and eventually war, conquer, and colonialism is, I think, both tragic and inevitable. That people were enslaved and purposely exposed to disease is unforgivable--the part that is inevitable is that they would be discovered. Cook had made two world voyages by the time the book opens. He was a celebrity, having who had risen from virtually nothing. At sea, he’d bucked the Royal Navy’s tradition of violence and cruelty, therefore he kept crew members who both trusted him and wanted to follow him to sea--he brought them fortune and he brought them home alive. He’d figured out how to avoid scurvy and brought home information of incomparable value, had mastered new nautical instruments and served as an expert scientist, anthropologist and navigator. As mentioned above, his mapmaking skills were superlative. He brought a talented artist in order to best capture what they found that could not come home. The story is an excellent one, and the story teller does it justice.

Crouseville Cemetery, Maine

There are 5 cemetaries in Crouseville, which is an unincorporated town within the town of Washburn in Aroostoock County, Maine. The population of all of Washburn in 1,500, so fewer still in Crouseville, and clearly more dead people than alive there as well. In 1800 the future Crouseville, Maine, did not have any particular name. In 1826 it was first surveyed by Joseph Norris and the early settlers living along the Aroostook River could not be certain if they lived in New Brunswick, a North American British Colony, or the United States. In 1839, the United States formed Aroostook County. This was an effort by the United States to lay claim to the area. In 1842, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty firmly established the area as United States territory, yet some townships in Maine were administratively part of Massachusetts, the mother state. My great grandmother was a Crouse, and the cemetery has more than its share of Crouse's buried there, but so too are there Woodman's. It sits atop a hill (there is another cemetery across the street, so this is clearly a better spot, or if not that then at least the better view. When my brother was buried there in 1969 you could see all the way to the river, but the pine trees have grown up and obstructed the view, but it is a beautiful location, none-the-less. It is well-tended and, something that is both important to Crouseville and important to my dad--there is a potato field that borders the cemetery just a stone's throw from our family plot. According to my cousin, it is farmed by a 2nd or 3rd cousin.

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

I very much enjoyed this--which I should qualify by saying this is my first book by this author, and so if you are a fan of her other work, I am not sure how this compares. I also do not read widely in fantasy in general, so I may not be the best judge of this genre--but I thought it was great. The story is set in late-16th-century Spain, and is centered on a young servant named Luzia, who has the power to create milagritos, or small miracles. She may be a kitchen maid, but she is an educated one, but she hides that for her own safety. She also hides that she has the power to heal, rightly guessing that could lead to her enslavement based on that gift alone. When Luzia’s power is discovered by her mistress, influential people want to use her for their own advancement, and soon she’s entangled in political intrigue, which includes the entry of her into a competition with other miracle-workers. Through it all, Luzia must hide the true nature of her power, which comes from reciting refranes, or old sayings, in Ladino — a Sephardic dialect of Spanish mixed with Hebrew and other languages. Nobody can know that Luzia is a conversa, a Jew whose family was forced to convert to Catholicism. There is a strong undercurrent about class, culture, and religion that runs through the story, as well as a romance. It is a very good story that is well told.

Burying My Father

I have been lucky in parental support. My parents always made it known that they supported me, and they did so both financially and emotionally, for a long time. I wasn't an orphan when I signed up for Medicare, but I did lose my father that year. The fact that it was a long time coming didn't help. That surprised me, and I am still struggling a bit with it. So it has come to this--the time to bury him, whether I am ready or not, it is time to make it final. My father was not ready to die. The last conversation I had with him was when he agreed that it was time to enter hospice. Intellectually he agreed that he did not want to go back and forth to the hospital any more, but emotionally he was nowhere ready to die. He was, we all agreed, a terrible patient. He became moribound from his congestive heart failure, get rushed to the hospital to diurese, and then wake up and become ever so grouchy about why he was there. He made me promise that when he died that I would bury him next to my brother in a family plot he had bought when he was in high school in Northern Maine. That turned out to be a bit tricky, because the geography of the gravesite left only one spot next to my brother, and my mother was definitely pulling rank and wanted to be buried next to my father--thankfully, they both are opting for cremation and they can share a spot, allowing both of them to be next to my brother. On the other side my brother, who died as a child, is flanked by my grandmother, who died long before I could ever meet her, but I have her genetic mutation. It killed her, but not me, at least so far, but being in that place, with all of them, me and my mother alive, my brother and father dead, was emotionally complicated for me. I feel grateful to have had them, even for the short time my brother live, grateful to be alive, and grateful my family came with me to say goodbye. My father was disappointed that while his mind was clear, his body failed him--I am happy to say that we did not.

The Road To The County by Chigozie Obioma

I read a review of this book that quoted Viet Thanh Nguyen (who recently had a book named as one of the best books of the 21st century by the New York Times) as saying, “All wars are fought twice. The first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” The Biafran conflict ignited in 1967, which was seven years after Nigerian independence from British colonial rule. The country was not built on historic boundaries that existed before the Europeans arrived, and the three largest ethnic groups are the Hausa, who make up 25% of the population; the Yoruba, who make up 21%; and the Igbo, who make up 18%. The war was fought between the Nigerian government and the secessionist state of Biafra, triggered by a declaration of independence by the Igbo-dominated region. Britain supported the government. However, news reports of starvation in Biafra, under blockade by the government, provoked public outrage. The war ended with the defeat of Biafra. By then up to 3 million people, mostly Biafrans, had died from starvation, disease and violence. That is the historical structure upon which this novel is written. It opens with a young student, Kunle, feeling responsible for the accident that crippled his younger brother Tunde, so he buries himself in his studies. On returning home from his studies, he discovers that Tunde has disappeared into the land now known as Biafra, where an armed conflict is going on. Kunle becomes obsessed with finding his estranged brother and bringing him back home. He is not a soldier, nor is he even truly aware of what he is undertaking and he is soon captured by rebel forces. Their commander, on learning that Kunle’s mother is an Igbo, instead of ordering his execution offers him the chance to fight. And fight he does. I am not much for novels that are largely about fighting, but this is a very good story that is well told.

Barton Street, Presque Isle, Maine

When my spouse and I envisioned the trip to bury my dad, we did not have a crowd in mind, but our kids saw it differently. My parents had spent the eight years before he died living nearby and my folks had been a constant in my children's lives--they came annually if not more often, and this was the first death in our family since my FIL died over a decade earlier. So there was quite the crew and instead of staying in one of the hotels in town, I got three Airbnb's and one of them was on the street that my mother grew up on, just down the block from the church she got married in. The house here is the one that I knew, but it turns out that my grandparents built it when my mother was in high school and she only lived there a couple of years. They had the property long before that, but were unable to build during WWII--so what I thought of as the family homestead was not so much that, although my grandparents lived there until the mid-70's. The house she lived in growing up was just down the block, and one of the very fun things about the trip for all of us was my mother reminiscing on each and every drive we made between the three houses and to and from restaurants the whole trip--it is very likely her last trip here, and it was really great to see it once more through her eyes. My kids had the opportunity to fall in love with Maine as adults, and we all had a chance to see it as my parents did.

The Rebel's Clinic by Adam Shatz

I had never heard of Frantz Fanon, who died of leukemia at the young age of 36, prior to reading this book. He was born on Martinique in 1925 and while he hated that his island was being governed by white men in Paris, he bought into the French ideology of liberty and equality. Educated and speaking better French than the French themselves, he fought for France against the Nazis and stayed in Paris after the war to make a life, marrying a white French woman. But while studying medicine in Lyon, he grasped that despite France's lip service to colorblind equality, he would inescapably be seen there not as an individual but as a Black man. And he opposed the idea of identifying by race. So he to moved to Algeria to run a clinic in 1953, and found himself joining forces with its National Liberation Front, or FLN, which was fighting to win Algeria's independence from France in a brutal struggle. He wasn't Algerian and couldn't speak Arabic, so he was never a leader or fighter. A brilliant sympathizer, he became a ruthlessly passionate advocate for the cause outside Algeria. This experience would lead Fanon to write his most famous work, "The Wretched Of The Earth," a poetically messianic volume whose publication has been called a historical event. His legacy is remembered to be that of a bloody revolutionary, but he also tried to explain why that is inevitably seen as the only solution to racist oppression. Ever since it first appeared in 1961, Fanon's book has inspired everyone from Latin American guerrillas and African revolutionaries to Palestinian militants and the Black Panthers. It's best known for its opening chapter, which champions the power of violence to liberate the oppressed both politically and psychologically--it is unpalatable, to be sure, but also may be impossible. Cultures do not shift seismically, but his work related to understanding the downtrodden has also been buried with him. I did not realize that the war for independence in Algeria was revving up at the same time that it was in Vietnam, and would love to read something equally cynical to this about the unraveling of colonial France.

Ode to the New England Lobster Roll

Lobster is not quite part of me, but it is certainly in my culture. My parent's come from immigrant stock--we all do, of course, except for the vanishingly few of us who were here to begin with, and even they most likely immigrated themselves, albeit centuries earlier. My kin came with the early settlers to the Massachusetts Colony and were part of the City State of Boston before the Revolutionary War, and moved gradually northward--My mother's family English with a bit of Norman blood, and my father's more what 24 and Me calls "northern Scandanavian" origins--the Scots. They came for reasons of religious independence, but they were certainly living off the land and the lobster was easily caught prey. I learned to both cook and eat a lobster at an early age--as a child my favorite part was the legs--and as I grew older I gained an appreciation for learning to love the crustacean. So on a recent trip to New England, one where we left my dad behind, my mother, my spouse, and I all ate a lot of lobster, mostly as a lobster roll (my favorite, and one of his), and thought about how much he would have enjoyed joining us, and how I will never eat lobster without thinking of him.

Long Island by Colm Tóibín

In this book Tóibín takes us back to his real home town of Enniscorthy in County Wexford, Ireland and he also takes us back to Eilis and her life 20 years after 'Brooklyn' ends. Back then, in the 1950s, Enniscorthy has little to offer the novel’s very young, soft-spoken but increasingly confident heroine whose older sister encourages her to go to America, where she meets and falls in love with Tony. Eilis is now in her 40s, the mother of two teenagers. She and Tony live on Long Island, in an enclave of private houses, all built for and inhabited by Tony’s very Italian family. Eilis has a keen emotional intelligence and independence of spirit, along with a deep love for her children. Her relationship with Tony fluctuates over the years, but she considers it solid. All that is disrupted when Tony reveals a secret that throws Eilis off her axis and she returns to Ireland to see her mother. She goes home and while she finds herself pining for the days of her youth, she is also arriving in the midst of her old flame Jim being on the verge of marrying the widow he has been seeing in secret. So much was left unsaid but the passions of youth run deep.

Never Forget

September 11th, 2001 We were like everyone else--maybe more aware because we were not at work--glued to the television, watching planes hit one then the other tower of the WTC in New York City. It was a shocking event and all Americans remember what they were doing that day--the similar day for me was Kennedy's assasination, but I remember it because cartoons were cancelled the day after he was shot and that was what my 4 year old self was struck by. In addition to what everyone was feeling, I was also watching my youngest son get his last dose of chemotherapy. He had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor 15 months before, and had undergone surgery, radiation, followed by a grueling year of chemotherapy. I was, and remain, grateful for the medical care he received as well as the research that went on before his diagnosis to give him the chance at living beyond 5 years old, but it was the hardest thing that I have ever done. The terrosit attacks on our country cut short any sort of celebration that was planned to mark the momentous day, but in some ways that turned out to be fitting. When treatment ended so too ended the prolonged periods of compromised immunity, bloow transfusions, deadly infections, and prolonged hours in the hospital, but it began what every family who has had a family member survive cancer--the waiting period. The time is fraught with anxiety, and almost nobody gets it. The general public thinks the hard part is over, and it is true that the physically grueling part is (hopefully) behind you--but the emotionally draining part continues. So today we celebrate the 23 year anniversary of a successful end of cancer treatment.

Leaving by Roxana Robinson

I read two books in a row that centered on the premise that the love one experiences in youth has an effect that lasts well into middle age. The idea is appealing, although not scientifically based as far as I can tell. The appealing part is that while some youthful relationships end because of incompatibility, others are affected by a change in geography that is unavoidable, and that it is "too soon" to commit for life. That is more or less what happens here. Sarah and Warren were in a relationship in college, and broke up, maybe based on enforced separation mixed with Sarah's uneasiness about Warren's life plans--they marry, they are not so much happy with their choices, Sarah divorces, Warren does not, and then they meet up again in their early 60's and find that they still have a passion for each other. The order with which they pursue that passion and how it eventually plays out are arguably sub-optimal, but the story is a fun one to read.

Maine Solar System Model

We were in Presque Isle this summer and discovered this wonderful model of the solar system as we drove northward from Houlton. The Maine Solar System—the largest scale model of the solar system in the western hemisphere, and the second largest such model in the world—stretches for nearly 100 miles along U.S. Route 1. The model, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, features nine planets (including Pluto, which was a planet when the model was first established), three dwarf planets (including Pluto, based on its current status and present location closer to the Sun), and seven associated large moons at Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto. Other dwarf planets, to be located north of the Sun at Lille and Madawaska, are planned. You could plan to see them all, but what happened to us is that we saw Saturn (which is hard to miss), then Jupiter, and then it was a question of where are all the rest? Lucky for us, because we were there for purposes other than site seeing, five of them are in and around Presque Isle, and the hard part is spotting them because the planets are all quite small, and then the sun, which is so huge you aren't sure if it is just a huge yellow arch or actually part of the model sun. One thing I will not forget is the scale (as well as the distance between them all), which drives home the scale of our solar system, and really, it was quite fun.

The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason

At it should be with all novels set in WWI, this one is full death and agony. It also has a heaping tablespoon of terrible luck. Just about everything goes wrong for Lucius, the young medical student at the center of this historical novel set during World War I. The scion of a wealthy family in Vienna, Lucius has disappointed his ambitious mother and his patriotic father by pursuing such a lowly career as medicine. When the war break out, they’re relieved that their son may finally have a chance to distinguish himself in the glories of battle. Lucius thwarts their best laid plans though, finding a hospital in a god forsaken place that is more like a dungeon than a house of healing, and he also finds a nurse who haunts him for years to come. The bleakness of the war is steeped in every chapter in an unrelenting way, and it is a quiet homage to those who put people back together rather than tear them apart. I am reminded of the recent pandemic, where health care workers put themselves in harms way and even died taking care of the sick. It is an homage, as well as a story of where you can find love in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Origin Story: A Return to Presque Isle

In June we returned to what is really the origin of my family, the state of Maine. The occasion was the burial of my father, and while my parents are both from Aroostook County, we have rarely been since I left home almost 50 years ago. The burial of my three grandparents who died in my lifetime, and the 50th wedding anniversary of one of my great aunt and uncles is the sum total of my trips to what was once my family homeland. Maine is a product of the Ice Age. The last glacier was responsible for cutting what had been a relatively straight coastline into the hundreds of bays, inlets and picturesque harbors we know today. The receding ice sheet formed the 2,000 or so islands found off the Maine coast. The region's earliest inhabitants were descendants of Ice Age hunters. Little is known of these "Red Paint" people - so named because of the red clay with which they lined the graves of their dead - except that they flourished and hunted in Maine long before the coming of the Micmac and Abnaki Indian nations. Burial grounds for these earliest Maine dwellers are thought to date back to 3000 B.C. Huge oyster shell heaps on the Damariscotta estuary testify to the capacious appetites of Maine's aborigines. Colonization came to Maine as it did to much of North America in the 17th century--A number of English settlements were established along the Maine coast in the 1620s, although the rugged climate, deprivations and Indian attacks wiped out many of them over the years. As Maine entered the 18th century, Massachusetts had bought up most of the land claims in this wilderness territory, an arrangement which lasted until 1820 when Maine separated from Massachusetts to become a separate state. At that point in time that my folks relatives were there--and maybe that is a bit of where the French in my gene pool came from, with England and France jockeying for control of the region. So while I rarely return, it feels comfortable when I do.

Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, by Cristina Rivera Garza

Liliana Rivera Garza was many things — an insatiable reader and writer, a talented swimmer, a movie lover, a devoted friend, a budding architect and an absolute feminist who loved smoking cigarettes. She dreamed of traveling and collecting experiences on her own. When she was 20, she took the first steps toward fulfilling that dream, moving to Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, where she began studying architecture at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. On July 16, 1990, Liliana was found dead in her apartment. She was killed by an ex-boyfriend, who had stalked her for many years. By the time an arrest warrant was filed months later, he was nowhere to be found. Nearly 30 years later, her older sister, the writer Cristina Rivera Garza, set out to recover a record of her sister’s life — and death. The trail, such as it was, had mostly evaporated, but Garza was determined to capture her sister’s last months and days. This is not so much a crime novel, because we know from the beginning who killed Liliana--it is more of a memoir by the author, written to her sister and to women who are killed by men who stalk them in every corner of the globe.

Morro Bay, California

I had an arduous birthday in 2023, when my friend and I bakes all the cakes for one of my sons wedding, all while my spouse was gone for the week attending a professional meeting. My friends, who truly does the lion's share of the baking and all the cake frosting and assembly, was laid up a bit with an ankle injury, so I was the legs of the operation. It was so grueling! I was walking 20,000 steps a day and I never left the property. The great news is that we finished the cakes, we didn't even want for freezer space, and the cakes at the wedding were truly fantastic!The bad news is that I was in a really bad mood about my extreme lack of a celebration.

Never fear! I spent the whole month of May this year making up for it, and one of those trips was to fabulous Morro Bay, with the same friend and her spouse so that the three of us could spend some times taking leisurely walks and bird watching. It is a spectacularly beautiful place that hosts a great bird festival in February, but is replete with shore birds year round. It was such a relaxing long weekend, and I would go back in a second.

The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen

This is set in the far north in 19th-century Scandinavia and it pits the indigenous Sámi people who live there against European settlers trying to impose their religion and values. In a village near the Arctic Circle, the charismatic Lutheran minister Lars Levi Laestadius tries valiantly to turn his congregation away from alcohol and towards salvation. His flock includes Finns and Swedes, but also a few Sámi, nomadic reindeer herders who's wealth and standing within the community depends on their skills as herders. He manages to convert Biettar, a Sámi leader, into the fold where he becomes a disciple of sorts, spending his time learning this new religion, leaving the care of his ever-dwindling herd of reindeer to his son, Ivvár. But while the minister gains a new parishioner, his daughter, Willa, becomes infatuated with Ivvár. As the young Sámi struggles to maintain the herd on his own, a task never intended for one person, the two grow closer. With the spring migration approaching, a custom that has been practiced by the tribe for generations, Willa prepares to join them, defying her father’s control. So it is a classic tale set in the frozen tundra when the world was changing rapidly.

Gaya Pierre Gagnaire, Paris, France

This was our last lunch of the trip (which has been a stellar food trip, no doubt about it). I like to have a lot of things from the ocean when I travel to places that abutt the sea, and this was an especially accommodating menu for that goal. The Michelin website says: Chef Pierre Gagnaire has a focus on good food in a bid to cater to modern French sensibilities with a seafaring slant (carpaccio of seabream, pink radishes and grapefruit; giant langoustine, cream of Paimpol beans, scallion onions) and a fondness for veggies.

The seafood platter for deux. There are about 40 tiny cockles sprinkled throughout that with some difficulty and a little finesse we were able to use the red topped toothpicks to get out the innards. One of my favorites—teeny tiny flavorful morsels! We really enjoyed this as the show stopping part of the meal, but there was much to love about this restaurant from start to finish.

Night Watch by Jayne Ann Phillips

The premise of this book is survival and the time period is in the aftermath of the Civil War. It is 1874, and the United States is still reeling from the horrors of the Civil War. ConaLee and her mother, Eliza, alone on their family property when ConaLee’s father didn’t return from the war, havebeen repeatedly victimized by one of the roving veterans who survives merely by taking from those he encounters. This period during and after the war was especially dangerous for women and children left alone on their homesteads where even vigilance wasn’t enough to prevent an attack. When this stranger inserts himself into their lives, Eliza withdraws into herself and becomes little more than a ghost in her own home, wordless and numb. ConaLee does her best to care for her mother. When the cruel man has finally had enough, he loads ConaLee and Eliza on a wagon and delivers them to the steps of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia. There, using false identities, they make a home for themselves and Eliza slowly begins to return to her former self under the care and protection of the people they meet. Unfortunately, peace and security rarely ever last. It does not go 100% as planned and it highlights a little written about aspect of the war.

Paris 1874 Inventing impressionism, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France

150 years ago, on April 15, 1874, the first impressionist exhibition opened in Paris. “Hungry for independence”, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne finally decided to free themselves from the rules by holding their own exhibition, outside official channels: impressionism was born. To celebrate this anniversary, Musée d’Orsay presented some 130 works and bringing a fresh eye to bear on this key date, regarded as the day that launched the avant-gardes. It was stunning, so beautiful as to be almost overwhelming, and when the museum emailed me several says after I returned home with the question "did you see everything?" (wanting me to consider museum membership as a means of rectifying that) my reply was that I saw almost none of it, I just saw this amazing feast of color and talent.

In the museum's own words: What exactly happened in Paris in that spring of 1874, and what sense should we make today of an exhibition that has become legendary? “Paris 1874. The Impressionist Moment” seeks to trace the advent of an artistic movement that emerged in a rapidly changing world. “Paris 1874” reviews the circumstances that led these 31 artists (only seven of whom are well-known across the world today) to join forces and exhibit their works together. The period in question had a post-war climate, following two conflicts: the Franco-German War of 1870, and then a violent civil war. In this context of crisis, artists began to rethink their art and explore new directions. A little “clan of rebels” painted scenes of modern life, and landscapes sketched in the open air, in pale hues and with the lightest of touches. As one observer noted, “What they seem above all to be aiming at is an impression”.