The Siren's Call by Chris Hayes

I read this because it was on Obama's Summer 2025 reading list--it was number 8 out of 10, and I did not love this. It is an analysis of a current challenge, which is that we collectively are drowning in an ocean of content designed to capture fragments of our consciousness, and we barely notice the tide pulling us under. It is an in depth look at why we are addicted to our phones. This does not quite resonate with me personally, even though I see it all around me, people who are in the midst of a group, but they are ignoring what is going on around them and are solely concentrated on their phones--the distracting content. It is dangerous, I see that--but again, I see it, and I am looking for something more solution focused. This book is more focused on why it happens. He does make an opening pitch that this is as old as man, that Odysseus was captured by a siren for a decade on his route home, and that we are following in his footsteps.

Quilted Postcards with Sarah Ruiz

Sarah Ruiz is a NASA space engineer by day, quilter by night. She spoke to our guild about her 100 postcards in 100 days project that she did during COVID. First she started with her idea about doing something over and over again for a 100 days as a way to get better at something. You do it every day--which is in itself a commitment. I do it with language acquisition (which I have been doing more or less for seven years), and it definitely has improved my ability to communicate in a couple languages that are not my first language. So I was intrigued by this idea when it comes to crafting skills. I had an inherent avoidance of FPP, even though when I have done it I have been impressed with the precision achieved with it and how compatatively low skilled it need be. So it is basically in my head and I need to do more of it if I am going to get over it. So maybe in 2026 I will figure out a 100 day project for myself. So she had this whole 100 days thing going on when the pandemic kept us all more or less at home (as a health care worker I left the house, but it was home or work, no exceptions, with contactless grocery pick ups and dinners outside at seperate tables per household). She decided she would do a pieced postcard every day and mail it to someone. One of my guild mates was lucky enough to receive one--but it was a way to distract herself, work within a small palate, and to brighten someone else's world. Also on the plus side, they are something you could crank out in an hour--and she has some free patterns on her website to get you started. Check it out!

The Names by Florence Knapp

I very much liked this, but it has a grim underlying message, which is if you are involved with an abuser, get out before it is too late. There are no good exit strategies that develop over time. This is what one reviewer described as a sliding door tale, where three different narratives unfold depending on the choice made in the beginning. Cora is married to Gordon, a respected physician in the community and a man who beats his wife at home. He comes from a long line of Gordons and when Cora sets off to register her son's birth, she is expected to continue that tradition. She doesn't want to, though. She considers naming him Bear, which is what her 9-year old daughter Maia wants, Jordan, which is what she wants, and Gordon, which is what is expected of her. The book unfolds with what happens when she makes each different choice, and no matter what, it doesn't go well--but it goes very differently for the boy depending.

Enoteca Regionale Del Barbaresco, Barbaresco, Italy

Inaugurated on July 5, 1986, the Enoteca Regionale del Barbaresco works for the promotion of Barbaresco DOCG, representing the entire denomination and over 150 of the wineries that produce it. There are three Barbarescos open for tasting, and while we were there is was largely an Italian clientele, buying large bottles of wine, Magnums and larger. The building is spectacular! The Enoteca del Barbaresco was born from an initiative of the Piedmont Region which in 1980 determined the establishment of the circuit of Enoteche Regionali to combine the valorisation of wine culture with the recovery of historical structures, which have become the headquarters of the various wine shops. The need to create a regional institution for the promotion of Barbaresco faced the problem of the lack of adequate space: both the castle of Neive and the fiefdom of Barbaresco were not municipal property and there were no suitable structures in Treiso. The Municipality of Barbaresco then decided to purchase from the Curia the building of the former Confraternity of San Donato, now disused, thus allowing the opening of the wine shop in 1986.

On Death by John Keats (1814)

A country should not set it's military on its people, and certainly not for revenge or vanity. But sadly and very unfortunately, that is where we are right now. On Death 1. Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain's to die. 2. How strange it is that man on earth should roam, And lead a life of woe, but not forsake His rugged path; nor dare he view alone His future doom which is but to awake.

Sadler Restaurant, Milan, Italy

This is an elegant place with excellent food--not only did the chef grace our table, he sat and ate with the two women who were about his age who were sitting next to us--we all opted for the tasting menu. For us, it was our last elevated meal in Italy and we wanted it to last. This is a one-Michelin star dining establishment housed in the Casa Baglioni hotel, a beautiful Art Nouveau building dating from 1913, this restaurant has a contemporary feel with an elegant dining room featuring colourful armchairs. The cuisine is precise and distinctive, with a harmonious balance of traditional and innovative flavours thanks to the top-quality ingredients used. This was an easy walk from our hotel, and from here we walked to the Duomo and to an upscale store to buy cheese to bring home.

Endling by Maria Reva

This book was long listed for the 2025 Booker Prize, and it is exactly the sort of book that you should read no matter that it didn't make the short list cut. Set in Ukraine in 2022,, it is is an incredibly unique, thought-provoking ode to love, loss, and identity. In addition, it navigates so many incredibly important themes that are at the forefront of Ukraine’s past and present. An endling: the last creature of a species; the stage before extinction. Yeva, a scientist, has dedicated her life’s work to snails. She is determined that her beloved shelled friends will not reach their end, she travels over land and lake throughout Ukraine. While she is trying to both conduct research and raise the funds to do so, Yeva grapples with expectations from society and from her family to leave the snails to their shells and forge a home of her own. They are unaware she has been roped into another line of work: ‘romance tours’, which are designed to attract foreign men desiring Ukrainian brides. As two sisters join Yeva, determined to break centuries of the misogyny of these tours, an unexpected collision between science and love occurs. The women launch an improbable mission, entering a battle in favor of feminism yet also entering the warzone of rural Ukraine, leading everyone around them to question whether they will become their society’s endling. We look on as the women, and the snails, enter an immense journey for freedom - for women, for science, and for their country--one that for Ukraine continues.

Sewing In The Fog with Radha Weaver

I want to pause briefly to say how much I love my quilt guild, which is the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild. I work remotely in Minneapolis, and I met a coworker (on purpose) at QuiltCon, the modern quilting's annual meeting, and wow wow wow, I fell in love with modern quilting, hook, line, and sinker. It was a crash bing bang all consuming love at first sight, and I joined her local guild, which had switched to an on line format during the pandemic, and now I really cannot get enough of the lectures we hear every month from modern quilters who talk about who they are, where they came from, and what they are doing. Our October speaker was Radha Weaver, who grew up on a commune in the Bay Area, and then after college worked in the garment industry for 15 years. She traveled to places where fabric is produced, like China and Bangladesh, and saw first hand both the process of fabric production and the conditions that the workers experienced and decided it was time for her to bow out of that work. She pivoted to recycling, or what is popularly known as upcycling, fabric. She works primarily in denim, some with leather, and now she not only uses previously used fabric in her work but she helps people connect with each other to exchange or off load fabric they have purchased but no longer want. She is adamantly not opposed to buying or selling fabric--she does want to get away from the fast fashion idea, where you buy something and wear it once or twice, but do not wear it out. That is unsustainable, and she is offering ideas about what to do instead.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

I loved this book, told entirely in what is known as the epistolary format--it is all written communication, a story told entirely through letters and emails. There is some very serious stuff herein, but strangely, the overall tone is light and upbeat. Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Through her correspondence the learn about who Sybil is and was--a mother, a lawyer, a wife, a friend--and someone who has suffered great loss and failed to successfully navigate grief. She is wise and funny, she is at once lucky and unlucky, and best of all we really get to know her through her writing. I could not put this down--I stayed up late to finish it, and was quite satisfied with it from start to finish. The best in a long time, simple and yet remarkably deep.

Death Due To Misinformation

We have been here before, and apparently we the people are easily misled, and we will be here again. During the COVID pandemic I was surprised and at time shocked by the lack of understanding about what was happening. It seemed like very basic biology--understanidng why a messanger RNA vaccine would be a novel approach is harder to follow, but what a novel virus brought with it in terms of risks and challenges is a foundational block in a high school education. The move towards making vaccines optinal--and not covered by insurance--is going to kill people, mostly children and elderly people. It will also, very importantly, maim people. The ravages of surviving the damage from high fever have been largely forgotten by most, but will become very real. And not vaccinating against COVID, a virus that we do not yet fully understand but know that fully a third of people recovering from COVID have cognitive impairment and longer term damage that we do not yet know how to treat, and given the support for science in this administration, are unlikely to learn more about in the short term. I encourage you to stroll through some pre-vaccination era cemetaries and note how many children are buried there--I have started collecting photos of just this--because sadly, if the anti-vaccination trend continues, we will have children populating them once again.