The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

Kate Quinn is the master of historical fiction when it comes to under appreciated stories about the valor of women. Igenerally prefer a story that captures an era in history rather than the specific details of that event or time period as told in nonfictional works and the story of the women who ran networks during Resistance in France is no exception. I read Madame Fourcade's Secret War by Lynne Olson after reading about it in The Economist, and while it was factually correct and told about a a young French mother who led the "Alliance," the largest and most effective intelligence network in occupied France, this book, which is essentially a parallel story in an earlier war, was more riveting and in many ways more memorable that that. This tells two stories, that of women who spied in WWI and that of women who spied in WWII,and we swing back and forth between their stories. Underlying them is the bleak outlook for talented women in the first half of the twentieth century. In any case,while I wouldn't hold this up as great literature, I very much enjoyed it and it is great story telling.

Forbidden Words Quilt Project

I just heard Lorraine Woodruff-Long speak about this project, which has been completed and is a quilt that is going on tour. Quilters have always been political and in the current climate, we are starting to feel like screaming is appropriate. Here is the background for this project from their website: A growing list of words and materials is being scrubbed from government websites and documents and flagged for review by federal agencies in an attempt by the Trump administration to remove all references not only to diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to climate change, vaccines, and a host of other topics. PEN America initially compiled a list of more than 250 words and phrases reportedly no longer considered acceptable by the Trump administration, from “abortion,” to “women,” and including “disability,” “elderly,” “Native American”and, unsurprisingly, the “Gulf of Mexico.” The list has now expanded to 384+ words and phrases, encompassing even desirable goals like “safe drinking water,” the mention of which can now result in research grants or other agreements with the federal government getting nixed. Some agencies ordered the removal of specific words from public-facing websites or the elimination of other materials (including school curricula) in which they might be included. In other cases, federal agencies used key words to flag materials for further review or asked staff to limit or avoid their usage. FORBIDDEN WORDS QUILT PROJECT Throughout the Fall 2025, they reached out to quilters, creators and makers to create blocks that will be sewn into a quilt featuring the words/phrases compiled by PEN America that are being flagged by the U.S. federal agencies to ban, limit, or avoid. Text will be created using fabric, letter templates and fusible, and cut out by hand and ironed onto a fabric block. Blocks will be cut from repurposed shirting, ideally from thrift and reclamation outlets or from your own home. THree quilters in my own guild (that I know of) participated in this amazing project. More to come.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn

This is straight ahead romance novel stuff, made more pervasively known because of the Netflix mini-series that now has four seasons, and likely more to come. The book hews close to the series, with some more believable progression of the relationship between Kate and Anthony. The advantage of the book is that there is a view into the character's inner thoughts and that is missing when it comes to the big screen. The one interesting given in this time period compared to 200 years later, which is where we are, this is set in the time of Jane Austen, a hundred years before the onset of WWI, is that the expectation that one would marry for love is very low. Women marry for financial security, for them and their families, and men have dalliances and marry for duty (and maybe keep up with the dalliances). The idea that there would be joy or love involved is secondary, and when that is the baseline, it is no wonder there is little in the way of happiness to be found. The Bridgertons break that mold and are better for it (of course, they are also rich).

La Grand Cerf, Villers-Allerand, France

We wended our way back towards Paris after a week in Alsace, and this part of the Champagne region is much more charming than staying in Reims proper. I had wanted to stay there, to see the famous church that Monet painted, but did not need to go back, and this restaurant was spectacular, well worth finding if you are in the neighborhood. Here is what they have to say on the Michelin web site: At the foot of the Montagne de Reims and on the road to Épernay, this imposing inn unabashedly brandishes its opulent style. Come evening, the elegant dining space done out in pale wood takes on a romantic air – the perfect setting for fine classic French cuisine delivered by chefs Dominique Giraudeau (who shone for many years in the kitchens of Gérard Boyer at Les Crayères) and his associate, Pascal Champion. On the menu, top-notch produce, from John Dory to free-range milk-fed veal, as well as game, lobster and truffles. We opted for the mid-sized menu--not the plat du jour, but one step up from that, and it was really lovely. The table ware was particularly nice, not fussy but quite pretty.

The Rarest Fruit by Gaëlle Bélem

This book, almost a novella, chronicles strange-but-true history of vanilla and its introduction to the West.The aromatic flavor was introduced to explorer Hernán Cortés by the Aztecs, whose civilization he would famously destroy. And that when cuttings of the vanilla planifolia orchid were brought back to Spain in 1529, European horticulturalists were unable to figure out how to get it to produce the beans they assumed would make them a fortune. And also that the plant then proceeded to languish in royal gardens for nearly three centuries until a gardener shipped it to the French colony of Bourbon (now Réunion), where an illiterate slave named Edmond Albius — a 12-year-old Creole boy — developed the method for hand pollination still used in its cultivation today. Edmond’s discovery had widespread economic and culinary impacts, but it’s his relationship with Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont, the white botanist who raised him, that lies at the heart of the story. He was Edmond’s adopted father, but he is also his owner. He dotes on his adopted son, teaching him the Latin names of flowers but not how to read the books in his library. He spares Edmond from toiling in the sugarcane fields, assigning him instead to the garden, but indignantly dismisses the boy’s aspirations of becoming a botanist and he does not free him. In fact, he steals credit from him, which was later restored to Albius by history.

You People (2023)

I hesitate to admit that I watched this moive because it was so atrociously bad, but watch it I did. There are a lot of good quality actors in this, which is why I kept trying it--on three seperate occasions before I could get all the way through it. I just kept thinking it might get better, but it didn't. The set up is kind of a modern Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, with Jonas Hill as the love interest and Eddie Murphy the Black Muslim dad. The twist is that his wife had a white grandfather, who Murphy thinks poisoned the well--so race and religion are a bit more nuanced in portrayal but that is where it stops. Full stop. This has nearly every stereotype about black people and Jewish people that you can imagine, and maybe it is supposed to be funny or make you think, but all it did was make me cringe, and I hope I save you from having to watch it.

Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard Book by Joan E. Strassmann

I very much enjoyed this book and it comes as a reminder about how important it is to keep in mind the things that are literally right outside your door. And the slow in the title is not a reflection on the intelligence of the birder, but rather that you are slowing down and taking your time rather than marching from house to car and back again, but rather taking your time to see what is on offer in your own neighborhood. It is a push back against the relentless drive to incessantly add to birding life lists; the book advocates for deep study in one area rather than spotting a bird and moving on to the next one. The commoner can be just as fascinating as the exotic. The book covers 16 birds, from Blue Jays to Snow Geese, that can be seen in her part of St. Louis. What makes her book particularly compelling is the research she shares on each of these so-called common birds--they are so much more varied and interesting than at first glance. The book also breaks down the sections based on location, covering her home as well as sites which are within a 20-mile radius of home. She gives examples of the differences that motivate different birds when they are competing for resources and what the outcomes might be between everything from interspecies competition to competition between siblings in the nest and what factors might dictate the outcome. This is maybe not a book for an experienced birder, or a competitive life list birder, but rather for someone who wants to experience more of the world right around them.

Yumiko Higuchi: Embroidery and Applique Artist and Her Books

Wow, wow, wow. This book and this artist are both equal parts amazing! Yumiko Higuchi is a world-acclaimed Japanese embroidery artist renowned for her exquisite needlework masterpieces. Her unique work balances modern and traditional aspects of the art form. Most of her books delve into designs from the natural world, which is true of this one as well, but here in addition to embroidery, she is adding felt and applique as well and the effect is beautiful.

She was initially a handbag designer, and her designs translate well to garments, tea towels, and various flavors of bags. In the past I have made bags, but only in the context of a class, and it would be really cool to pre-embroider and applique material that would then be cut out and sewn into a bag. I got this book out of the library but knew immediately that I had to add it to my own library, and she has quite a few additional books published that I suspect are worthy of hunting down.

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

It surprised me how much I enjoy the Bridgerton televion series. My family is not surprised--I loved Downton Abbey and watched it on my own. We usually watch this sort of light television fare together and therefore it is unusual for me to soldier through a multi-season series without them, so it is notable, but these period drama/soap opera series do have a tendency to hook me in. This is the starting book of the series that the series is based on, and I did a combination of reading and listening to it. I was somewhat hampered by having seen it already, and being pretty sure it had a different ending, at the very least, because it is not the stuff of romance novels, to put it mildly. The series has otherwise stayed pretty close to the novel, albeit with a larger cast of characters and more fleshed out personalities. The inner thoughts in both Daphne and Simon's heads are nice to hear--that doesn't happen much when the book goes to the big screen, and while I would do it in the reverse order as a rule (book first, screen version second), I enjoyed this, and have already started the second book in the series.

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

This is unabashedly romantic and more of a rmoantic drama than a comedy. It is based on a book of the same title by Jo Jo Moyes, and while I do not read much of her work, this seems more sentimental than even she usually goes. There are two times here--which is easier to see than it is to write about, at least here it is. There are also two different love stories here. In the present day, Ellie, a journalist who has no interest in romance, is assigned to write about an editor who has recently died. She has to get past a rather frosty and formal archivist named Rory to get access to the editor’s archive, and there she finds a swooningly That part of the story is set in 1965 London: there’s the wealthy and gorgeous young couple, Jennifer and Lawrence Stirling--he's a bit distant and she's a bit young. Through a series of flashbacks we learn of her passionate affair with a journalist that her husband introduced her to, and the series of near misses that they have at happiness. In the present day Ellie is busy unraveling the story in the present day, hunting down who they were and what happened to them, and then it all comes together in the end. This was surprisingly tense to watch and surprisingly sweet in the end.