It’s Wednesday! It’s also the last day of November. How the heck did we get here? For those who celebrated Thanksgiving, how was it? My chocolate mousse with cinnamon whipped cream was a big hit and so good. There were also a few mornings where I ate leftover mashed potatoes for breakfast. Now, we begin the slow march (or rather brisk step) toward the final holidays before the new year. How are we all feeling? … Continue reading Links: Advent Calendars, Fiber, & More →
Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life is a relatively new release and yet it reads like a biography from the 1970’s or 1980’s. There’s a lot of fat shaming. The Edwardian period is heavily sentimentalized. Several parts of the story are imagined in a dreamy, poetic manner. The author sides with Christie on all fronts, minimizing her racism and anti-Semitism (as was typical of her era, Christie disliked Italians as well, which is also minimized) and justifying … Continue reading Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life by Laura Thompson →
Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life is depressing, but also fascinating. This biography follows the life of the author of The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in The Castle from her birth to her premature death at the age of 48. The biography presents Jackson as complicated, neurotic, brilliant, often very happy, but often terribly frustrated. The biographer, Ruth Franklin, presents Shirley as a person who was torn between … Continue reading Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin →
Oh my gosh, fellow history buffs, clear your schedule – How To Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Adventurer is so much fun. This book is all about women who were explorers and adventurers, including early explorers such as Lady Hester Stanhope (1776 – 1839) and more modern women such as Jerri Nielsen (1952-2009). The author, Mick Conefrey, never defines his terms, but he seems willing to include any women who … Continue reading How to Climb Mt. Blanc in a Skirt by Mick Conefrey →
I expect that we’ll see a number of WWI themed movies over the next three or four years as we pass through the centennial anniversaries. I’ve written before how I have this fascination with the insanity that was WWI, so yes, I’ll go see like, all of them. I was really excited for this one, being the biography of Vera Brittain and how much I love women’s history and telling women’s stories. I also, having cut … Continue reading Movie Review: Testament of Youth →
