Reading, Writing, Working, Playing

Eighteen Years and Counting, Plus Sandwich and Wreck

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 28 May 2026 12:33:36 -0600

It was my blogoversary on Wednesday, May 27 (aka yesterday). Babies born when I started blogging in 2008 are graduating from high school. Platforms for blogging have come and gone, but hating change, I have stuck with Blogger and have no regrets. I would like to figure out how to download and archive my posts since I know that Blogger will not last forever. Does anyone know how to do this?

I mostly blog about the books I've read, occasionally blog about the travels I've taken, the plants I've grown or tried to grow, and just random stuff.

I love my blog--often I won't know what I want to say about a book until I start typing. Without this outlet, my thoughts would remain the muddled mess that is their comfort zone.

Mostly though, I love the blog because it connects me with other readers whose recommendations and reviews I have come to rely on to enhance my reading life. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to be part of the book-blogging community. You are treasured!

Stats: 1065 posts, with about half about Jane Austen it seems; 7160 comments; >2.2 million views, but who's counting!

I updated my Popular Posts widget to show which posts over time have garnered the most views. I honestly think the Adam Bede one was linked somewhere because why else would it be #1?

Books Read Recently

Sandwich and Wreck, by Catherine Newman - a friend of my daughter's lent me both books, and since so many people blogged about Sandwich last year, I took the plunge.

Both were wonderful, although I'll give the edge to Sandwich. It takes place over the course of a week in a holiday cottage on Cape Cod. Rocky and Nick and their two adult children as well as their son's fiancé and Rocky's parents vacation together, and in the course of the week we learn about the dynamics of the family, their backstories (aka secrets), and traditions.

I really enjoyed spending time with this family, and I particularly loved daughter Willa, a sweet, sensitive, funny, young woman. I loved reading about vacationing on Cape Cod, which is still on my bucket list.

Wreck continues the story of the family the following year The wreck is a train accident that kills a young man from the town where Rocky and Nick live, and the accident becomes a pivot point for developing family relationships and, for me, a metaphor for Rocky's health issues.

In looking at Newman's author profile on GoodReads, Sandwich wans't her first novel but feels like it is her breakout novel. Has anyone read any other of her novels? I do like her writing style. Easy to read, interesting but not too angsty. Good comfort reading when escape seems the best option.

Spring Notes

Hope everyone has a good end of May, beginning of June! It's been cool and rainy in Colorado, which I love. The garden is in--all I have left to do is throw some zinnia seeds in their flower bed and hope they sprout and bloom before the frost hits us in September!

Bird nest update - something attacked the nest of baby birds on the front porch and there were no survivors--the entire wreath with nest was upside down on the porch floor. Mama bird is bereft and keeps on asking to come inside to mourn her loss. We thought she picked a great location, but Nature can be cruel. Mama EC Dove is still sitting on her nest by the back door, so hopefully those chicks will survive. Stay tuned for more of Wild America.

Living Room Refresh

We are finally replacing the carpet in the living room with hardwood floors. This is our 32nd year in the house and 22 since our last living room refresh.

The wood will be delivered tomorrow and then it ages for two weeks before installation. Then we paint, and by then my husband should maybe be done building the new TV table with towers he has been working on (while the boat project languishes). We found a very cool end table at our local antique store that the owner is refinishing, and new couches and chairs are on order. I still need to order area rugs, but we've picked out what we want.

This is what we're doing instead of going to Scotland in the fall as originally planned.

Catching Up and Feeling a Bit of Deja Vu

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Sat, 16 May 2026 14:30:22 -0600

Since my last post, we took a wonderful trip to Cortez, CO for the annual Ute Mt Birding Festival, came home to two birds' nests in very inconvenient locations (of course), suffered through a bad cold, relistened to a couple of great audio books on the road trip, and read a couple of new books.

What to cover first?

Travelogue: Cortez

Let's go with the trip to Cortez. It was our 5th time going to the festival, and as usual it was great. Most memorable was the tour of the Yucca House National Monument, led by a Mesa Verde park ranger and expert birder. Until this trip, I had never heard of this site, and believe me, I spent a lot of time in this part of the country as a kid. It was established early, 1919, but never developed as a destination, simply preserved, which is a good thing.

The site, which is contemporaneous to Mesa Verde, is mostly unexcavated, but the ranger was able to make the lives of the people who inhabited this huge village come alive. We also saw a lot of cool birds, including a shrike, but no roadrunner, which he had sort of promised us we would see!

Brownheaded Cowbird

Northern Shrike

Cortez is a cute little town, near the Four Corners (i.e., where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona come together), and I especially love the street art. Below is a mural on one of the outside walls of the Cortez Cultural Center.

Another mural

And yet another mural

Nests with Eggs

Once home, we discovered that an enterprising House Finch had set up housekeeping on our front porch, taking advagtage of the twigs in my spring wreath to create a safe, dry place for her family.

My husband thoughtfully put up caution tape around the front porch so that Mama Finch isn't startled too often.

The other nest is that of a Eurasian Collared Dove and is situated so that we cannot go from the garage to the backyard without disturbing Mama EC Dove.

Feels like we are running a maternity ward but proud to have created a congenial habitat.

Books

Finally, we get to the books read and reread.

For the road trip, we listened to You Are Here, but David Nicholls, which I loved and knew my husband would enjoy. He did. Since we finished that on the drive home, we started Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman, which again I had really enjoyed and knew would be a good, light book to listen to.

I've also recently read the following:

A Case of Mice and Murder, by Sally Smith - recommended by both Constance of Staircase Wit and I think also Lark of Lark Reads. It took me a little while to fall in love but now I am smitten and intend to read more in the series (The Trials of Gabriel Ward). Gabriel is an unlikely detective, but I like the way his mind works and he definitely became someone I liked spending time with. I had the whodunnit part figured out early on, but so what? A very fun read. And, I think I now have a better grasp on the Inns of Court in London, which means whenh I reread Bleak House I won't feel so lost...maybe.

The Impossible Fortune, by Richard Osman - #5 in the immensely popular (and rightly so) Thursday Murder Club series. It was as good as all its predecessors. These books are genuinely funny and always make me laugh out loud, but the plots are complicated, relevant, timely, and often techie (so, like Joyce, I learn something!).

I also just finished another Scottish-history novel, but I will save that for another Reading Scotland post.

The Cold

I know, I know. Everyone gets a cold. But I haven't had one in a long time, and I am a big baby. I actually took a Covid test because I felt so crummy. Negative, which is good. I am finally feeling better today, with the proverbial lingering cough

We started rewatching Outlander last night and just watching Claire and Jamie and the other Highlanders riding for days and nights in the rain was almost more than I could take!

Wild for Austen - by Devoney Looser

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Tue, 5 May 2026 16:58:00 -0600

So why did I give Wild for Austen: A Rebellious, Subversive, and Untamed Jane, by Devoney Looser, five stars? I already knew Austen to be a brilliant satirist who skewered those she disdained; I've read the madcap, irreverent stuff she wrote as a teen; and I've dissected her major novels, uncovering all sorts of salacious undercurrents that belie the prim and proper Miss Jane that early biographies promoted.

Despite feeling that the author was trying a bit too hard to make her "wild" point, I just really loved diving in Austen's work and life and times...again! It was a fun book to read--comforting in its familiarity, scholarly but accessible. Looser is a professor who has a knack of expressing her points elegantly. And, there was a lot of new info about Austen that I hadn't heard.

Part I is a walkthrough of Austen's works, starting with the Juvenilia and ending with the unfinished fragments. I particularly liked Chapter 3, "The Controversial Case of Sophia Sentiment," in which Looser lays out the case that Austen's first published work was a letter she wrote to The Loiterer, an Oxford weekly for which her brothers James and Henry wrote the bulk of the copy, under the pseudonym Sophia Sentiment. Looser convinced me that teenager Jane was in fact the author of this wonderful satirical letter. in which she argues for more romantic content and fewer stuffy essays.

Part II, "Fierce Family Ties," contained a lot of new information for me. Looser discusses Jane's relationship to the Burdett family--some of her letters indicate socializing with Frances Burdett and Sophia Burdett, respectively the sister and daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, a political radical who championed universal male suffrage and endured a stint in the Tower of London.

I also learned a lot from the chapter on Eliza, Comtesse de Feuillide, Jane's cousin and Henry's first wife. Jane spent a fair amount of time visiting Henry and Eliza, and Looser makes a compelling case about Jane's exposure to the international social set that Eliza enabled, including the Count and Countess d'Antraigueses--she was an opera singer and he was a spy--and they were brutually murdered in 1812.

And here you thought you knew everything there was to know about Jane's life!

Part III, "Shambolic Afterlives," was particularly fun to read, from early literary conversations with Jane's ghost, to imaginary lovers, to erotica. The penultimate chapter, "Loving (and Hating) Jane Austen," was my favorite and probably the reason I gave the book 5 stars--here's a particularly good passage that resonated with me:

On balance, I've found and still find Austen's novels to be not only a profound personal pleasure to read and reread but also a shared vehicle to explore with others what it might be to try to live a meaningful life in a world that's deeply unfair.

Author and Austen scholar, Devoney Looser

The Correspondent

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 11:28:00 -0600

It seems everyone was reading The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans, last year, and with good reason. I thoroughly enjoyed this epistolary novel. It made me cry, and I haven't cried over a book in a very long time. Swept away by emotion, I happily bestowed five GoodReads stars on this gem.

Because the novel is entirely letters, it was a pretty quick read with many pages less than half filled with text. I did read a printed copy rather than an audio, which I often opt for when reading contemporary fiction, and I'm glad I did. I would have found it irritating to listen to the same addresses repeatedly.

I found I could relate to Sybil--not so much with regards to the specifics of her life (I am not divorced, I have good relationships with my adult children, and I love to travel, especially outside the US, and I have never had to suffer the grief of a child of mine dying), but I am of her general age (a bit younger actually, but that will change!) and disposition (to a degree). I enjoy writing letters to friends, although I would never presume to write to an author.

I did love the fact that she corresponds with Joan Didion and reached out to Stephen King, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Gabaldon, among others, providing her take on their books and what their stories have meant to her. As a reader, I did enjoy hearing about what she was reading and why.

I liked the story arc--how she became friends with her neighbor, how she fought with and then reconciled with both her daughter and her best friend. How she was finally able to acknowledge the mistakes she made in her professional life, as clerk and confident to a judge. How she finally was able to confront the truth about how her son died. I think in the end Sybil's story is about accountability...and the courage to be accountable.

I heard that Jane Fonda will be playing Sybil Van Antwerp in a movie version, which I think is terrific. I don't think it will be difficult to shift media on the story. There is so much good stuff there to work with.

I tried to find Evans's earlier book, Within the Walled City, but it appears to be out of print, and my usual sources are coming up dry. I have to stop in at the library this afternoon, so I may ask if they can find it anywhere. I cannot imagine that it will stay out of print long--with the success of The Correspondent, I'm sure her publisher wants to ride those coattails with anything else she has written.

Happy Belated Earth Day

I meant to spend yesterday in the garden, but life had other plans in store for me. I still need to plant spinach, lettuce, and peas as well as finish cleaning the flower beds and prepping the veg beds.

The native garden is flourishing--I'm hoping for early flowers!

Reading Scotland: The Stuarts and Kidnapped

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 10:25:00 -0600

Two more Scottish-based books under my belt.

The Royal Stuarts: A History of the Family that Shaped Britain, by Allan Massie - a solid three-star survey of the Stuart/Stewart dynasty in Scotland and England. Although published n 2011, it had a somewhat dated feel to it. I learned a great deal, coming from knowing very little about those that preceded Mary Queen of Scots.

Survey books like this are challenging in that each section was short enough to be digestible and not overwhelming with detail, but then I found myself wanting more info about each monarch and what was happening at the time. For example, the infamous Gunpowder Plot early in the reign of James VI/I (the VI refers to his Scottish title, and the I to his English one) is given one line. I know there is a wealth of info on this event out there, but I do believe it warrants more than a mere mention.

Also, I would have appreciated illustrations--the cover shows a passel of Stuarts but there was no info inside about who was who. I did like the family tree and referred to it often to keep straight the many people named James, Charles, Mary, or Anne.

I also reread the wonderful adventure story, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped is actually the first book in Stevenson's David Balfour series--the second is Catriona, which I have never read and probably should.

Even though this was either my second or third reading of this book, I hadn't read it in at least 40 years and so it truly made a lot more sense this time around. I vividly remembered the first part, where 16- year-old David Balfour, newly orphaned, hears that he has family and sets out to find them. He discovers he has a miserly old uncle who, when his attempt to murder David fails, arranges for a sea captain to kidnap him and take him to the American South and sell him into slavery.

On board the ship, David is befriended by Alan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite agent (time period is shortly after the failed 1745 rising) and together they fight off the wicked sea captain and his rogues, survive shipwreck, flee through the Highlands with the British army searching for them, nearly starve, and survive all manner of dangers as they make their way towards Edinburgh and the lawyer who will restore David to his rightful place as heir of the House of Shaws! Here is a map of David's journey.

Now that I have a better understanding of the politics of the time, as well as the religious conflicts, I actually enjoyed the story so much more than when I had read it without that context.

There have been a number of film versions (1917, 1938, 1948, 1960, 1971, 1986, and 2005), none of which I've seen. I'm learning towards the 1960 Disney version, starring James McArthur as David and David Finch as Alan Breck, with a cameo by Peter O'Toole (apparently his first film role). I had a massive of crush on James McArther when I saw him in Swiss Family Robinson, so it would be fun to see him as David.

Scottish History Podcast

I've been enjoying The Scottish History Podcast. Owen Innes is a former tour guide turned podcaster. He is currently doing a series on the Scottish monarchs named James--I just listened to his latest on James IV. For me, Owen's info is at the right level--enough detail for me to get the idea of what is going on, but not so detailed that I get lost in the weeds.

Spring Roundup

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:19:00 -0600

Spring has come early to Colorado--the daffodils are just about done, as are the apple trees (both ornamental and fruiting), and the lilacs are threatening. We actually had a bit of rain yesterday, and I planted red and white onions last Sunday, but the lawn remains absolutely parched.

I am cleaning the flower beds and thinking about when to plant the lettuce, spinach, and peas.

I haven't booked our trip to Scotland in September yet. It may have to wait until next year as flights have gotten prohibitively expensive, and I don't want to fly in steerage anymore. Nor do I want to just let every company pass along the increased costs to the consumer. This consumer is starting to say no thank you. If I sound like a curmudgeon. So be it. I am embracing my Hagitude! See below :)

Just Read (past tense)

The Proving Ground, by Michael Connelly - a solid 5 stars for this newest Lincoln Lawyer novel. I loved the subject matter--how high tech is operating without "guard rails" when it comes to AI, especially those that target children with AI-companions. There is so much that I hate about AI, and I loved Mickey Haller going after it. I think this book should be recommended reading for all middle school and high school students and their parents!

I worked in high-tech for 42 years--my entire career--and industry never has and never will self-regulate. As always, Connelly's story-telling skills are first rate, and his characterization is spot on. Mickey and his staff definitely have their flaws, but they are realistically likeable characters.

Hagitude: Reimaging the Second Half of Life, by Sharon Blackie - recommended by my 30-something daughter, who is very far off from Hagitude herself, I found so much to love about this book. From the retelling of folk tales that feature both positive and negative images of older women to the Jungian discussions to the personal stories about how the author dealt with aging, this book is chock full of interesting ideas about what it means to become one of the wise women, an elder of the community.

A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster - a reread of a favorite novel, I really enjoyed getting to know Lucy Honeychurch all over again. Like Lucy, I feel in a muddle half the time myself, and I can truly relate to both her wanting to please everyone and to live her own life honestly and enthusiastically.

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 1, by Beth Brower - recommended by JoAnn of Gulfside Musing, this short first-in-a-series novel was delightful. Light, bright, sparkling--I'm eager to read Volume 2. As the title promises, this is the journal of a young Victorian lady who is fighting to regain possession of her inherited home when she comes of age. For some reason, it reminded me of A Series of Unfortunate Events--maybe due to the general quirkiness. Definitely a book to lift one's spirits when the doom-scrolling threatens to overwhelm.

Blue Lightning, by Ann Cleeves - book four in the author's Shetland series. I was eager to read this for my Reading Scotland project, and I was confident that I would find it wonderful as Cleeves has been growing steadily as a favorite mystery writer.

Alas, this is currently in the Did Not Finish category in GoodReads because...

***********SPOILERS**************

...she kills off Fran, Jimmy Perez's finance near the end. ARRGGHHH! I seriously hate it when great characters are gratuitously axed because the writer doesn't feel like having the main character's arc go in that direction. At least that's what it felt like to me. There was absolutely no reason that Fran had to die for the mystery to be resolved. I simply couldn't bear to read about her murder and Jimmy's grief and guilt over it

I think I will probably steel myself and go ahead and read the final chapters and then mark it read. But, I am not sure about reading any more in this series. And I am definitely not watching the TV show after this!

Speaking of TV Shows

Just watched Apple Cider Vinegar on Netflix about Belle Gibson, the Australian social media starlet who convinced her followers that she had cured herself of brain cancer through healthy eating. I was absolutely mesmerized and appalled by the narcissism, self-delusion, and con-artistry of this woman.

As with so many scams, I found myself agonizing over the utter waste of time, energy, and talent. Belle was clearly not an unintelligent person. She was a hard worker. She was media-saavy with brilliant instincts about what works when it comes to building a brand and advertising. If only she had believed in herself enough to go for it without the crutch of making herself into a victim.

In addition to Belle's story, the TV series also told the stories of two other women, both of whom did have cancer, and how they and their families and loved ones helped them deal with their diagnosis, fought with them over treatment options, and loved them throughout their journey.

I was particularly impressed with how well produced this series was--it really physically demonstrated how addictive external validation via the internet can be. Like The Proving Ground, this show focused on the very real dangers that internet technology pose.

I also started rewatching Monarch of the Glen--the marvelous British show from the early 2000s. Set in the Scottish highlands, it is enormous fun, with fantastic scenery. In a nutshell, Archie MacDonald returns home from London to find he is the new laird of Glenbogle, his family's estate that is under water financially.

I only watched the first five seasons the first time around and will probably do the same this time. The last two seasons deal with a usurper and, again, I just didn't like the story line that developed.

I don't know if this show is available streaming. I am getting it through a wonderful, old-fashioned process called inter-library loan.

Is anyone else watching orange-loving Jamie Ding on Jeopardy? He's won over $500k and the stuff he knows is just astounding. That said, he has missed a couple of final Jeopardy questions that I was surprised he didn't know. But still--he is pretty darn impressive!

Travelogue: Cranes and Cather

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 2 Apr 2026 14:49:00 -0600

Ten years ago or so, my husband and I went to Kearney, Nebraska for the spring migration of Sandhill Cranes. Every year since then, we have wanted to go back and this year, last week, we finally did. BTW, here is a link to our trip in 2014.

Roughly 80% of the world's population of Sandhill Cranes stop off in mid-Nebraska for a little rest and relaxation along the Platte River between February and April. They bulk up on corn droppings in the fields and fish in the river, find their mate, and socialize with friends before continuing on north where they breed and summer.

The town of Kearney definitely leans into the Sandhill Crane migration--I imagine this is peak season for the hotels, motels, and restaurants, with visitors coming worldwide to experience the skies filled with birds. The map of public viewing areas pictured below is available everywhere and was invaluable.

On a previous trip, we were happy with the Fort Kearny Hike/Bike Bridge and went there at sunset and sunrise and saw thousands of birds, bedding down for the night and taking off in the morning.

On this trip, we went to the bridge on our first night in town and were so disappointed. Hundreds of people lining the bridge, but virtually no birds came within 300 yards of the bridge. So, the next morning, we went to the Plautz Viewing Platform a bit east of the bridge, and were thrilled to see hundreds of birds take off. So that evening and the following morning, we went back to the viewing platform and experienced what we had remembered from 10 years ago.

Flocks of cranes fill the daytime sky as they scope out the best cornfields.

Cleaning up last year's corn crop...

Feasting on fish, bugs, basically anything they can swallow.

The Rowe Sanctuary provides blinds that you can book (probably six months in advance) as well as tours. We didn't do either this trip, but may book a blind for next year. Yes, I want to go back next year.

After the morning bird show, we headed off to the town of Kearney for breakfast and discovered a wonderful coffeeshop that does killer scrambled eggs. If you are ever in Kearney for breakfast, try Kitt's Kitchen. The staff is friendly, the food and hot beverages are great, and the atmosphere is so inviting.

On to Red Cloud

Because the crane show is really a sunrise/sunset affair, we decided to go an hour south of Kearney to Red Cloud and visit the National Willa Cather Center in Red Cloud, Nebraska. Although I haven't read even half of her novels, I consider Cather one of my favorite American authors.

The exhibit at the Center is exceptional, and I learned so much about her life and work and career. The Center offers tours of her childhood home, but we didn't have time for the tour so just stopped by to take some photos. I believe the town of Red Cloud is now smaller than when she lived there in the 1880s and 1890s, but we did find a place for lunch (Juan's Bar and Grill) across the street from the Center that made a very good cheeseburger and fries!

The house Cather lived in as a child.

Cather describes this house in detail in The Song of the Lark, which is the most recent Cather that I have read. I also picked up a couple of her later novels that I haven't yet read. Lucy Gayheart was published in 1935, and Sapphira and the Slave Girl is her last novel, published in 1940.

The road trip to Nebraska was so rewarding--getting up before the birds, watching the sun rise and listening to the world come to life, shivering in the cold with hundreds of other people who want to witness one of Earth's great migrations. Discovering new gems in the heartland. Seeing the landscape that inspired one of my favorite authors. Exploring my own backyard. Watching the sun set on a beautiful river.

Reading Scotland: Clanlands and The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 13:28:00 -0600

Clanlands: Whisky, Warfare, and a Scottish Adventure Like No Other - written and read by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish, Charlotte Reather (co-writer)

Here's excerpts from the GoodReads blurb:

As stars of Outlander, Sam and Graham eat, sleep and breathe the Highlands on this epic road trip around their homeland. . Armed with their trusty campervan and a sturdy friendship, these two Scotsmen are on the adventure of a lifetime to explore the majesty of Scotland. A wild ride by boat, kayak, bicycle and motorbike, they travel from coast to loch and peak to valley and delve into Scotland's history and culture, from timeless poetry to bloody warfare.

Definitely a fun book to listen to, although the banter between Sam and Graham did wear thin after a while. I definitely enjoyed hearing about this history of the various places they visited, and their love of Scotland shines through so strongly.

I also enjoyed their Outlander anecdotes. I only watched the first three seasons, but I am planning to rewatch them again this summer. And I also enjoyed hearing about their non-Outlander acting careers--always interesting to hear about life in the theater and on the set.

The Redemption of Alexander Seaton - by Shona (aka S.G.) MacLean - the first in a series by the author of The Bookseller of Inverness, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

Here's the Goodread blurb:

Is the young man merely drunk or does his tottering walk suggest something more sinister? When he collapses in front of two sisters on that dark, wet night, they guess rightly that he's been murdered by poisoning. So begins this tale set in the town of Banff, Scotland in the 1620s.

Alexander Seaton is not the young man mentioned in the blurb, but he is the one that said young man reaches out to, imploring his help, and Alexander, to his great shame, ignores the plea for help. That is just part of what he needs to redeem. Alexander has made some mistakes and had some bad luck, and is now a very educated man who cannot do the work he has felt called to do all his life, namely be a Presbyterian minister.

I truly enjoyed traveling back to 1620s Scotland, during a witch-hunting phase, when invasion from France was highly likely, given the religious and political turmoil. Who knew that map-making could have such ominous overtones? The who-dunit part of the story was excellent--and the unfolding of the mystery was detailed and super interesting.

It is a very detail-rich, historically satisfying novel. You can tell the author is writing of her homeland--she knows the landscape, the flora and fauna, the fog patterns (it is Scotland, after all!), and all the landmarks, natural and manmade. I also loved visiting the university in Aberdeen, Alexander's alma mater, with him, and hearing about his haunts and habits as a student.

Alexander is a very likeable protagonist--flawed but earnest, with a solid gold heart, and brains to boot. I am looking forward to reading the other books in the series.

Just read: God of the Woods, Dream Count, and another Birder Murder mystery

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Mon, 9 Mar 2026 15:45:00 -0600

God of the Woods, by Liz Moore - I saw this book on so many blogs last year, and since I loved the premise, I fell for the hype. So glad I did because it was a fun book that kept me on the edge of my seat.

Two children from the same wealthy family disappear 14 years apart from their parents' summer complex in the Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. The story alternates between the summer of 1975 when 14-year-old Barbara Van Laar disappears from the children's summer camp on the Van Laar preserve and the summer of 1961 when 8-year-old Bear Van Laar disappears from the preserve.

The cast of characters include the weird Van Laar parents, both from moneyed backgrounds--Peter is a cold, controlling banker and Alice is a debutante who never grew a spine; wealthy friends of the parents, hardworking law enforcement, a convicted escaped rapist and serial killer, camp staff including the camp manager and groundskeeper, and town folk from the nearby blue-collar town of Shattuck, NY..

The resolutions for both disappearances were different than I expected and pretty interesting in themselves. I also thought the red herrings were terrific and really had me going down a variety of deadends.

I almost had a problem with stereotypical characters, but Moore managed to step back from the stereotype and make them real. The 1970s she depicts in rural NY was not really recognizable to me--being a teen in Colorado in the 1970s, but I figured that had more to do with location and regional norms than authorial sloppiness. In other words, I enjoyed the story so much I gave the author some slack.

Has anyone read any of the other books by this author?

Dream Count, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - this was a five-star book for me. Here's the GoodReads blurb:

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until—betrayed and brokenhearted—she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America—but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

I really enjoyed reading about these four women from worlds that I know so little about. Even when they are in the U.S., their experiences, being international women of color, barely intersect with my own reality. However, Kadiatou's story is the most powerful and compelling. She tells of her life in Guinea--unlike the other three women, she is not born into a wealthy family--and so she must work from an early age. She immigrates to the U.S., helped by her fiancée, and it was fascinating and sobering to read about the immigrant experience. The other women were interesting to read about, but hers was the story I really cared about...and deeply.

The ending is probably one of the most satisfying endings to a story that I have read in a very long time. It is beautiful and hopeful, life-affirming but not sugar-coated. We all dream our own dreams and what is good or right or just for one person is not necessarily what another person wants.

Also, the Author's Note at the end is brilliant and definitely worth reading. She says this about stories:

Stories die and recede from collective memory merely for not having been told. Or a single version thrives because other versions are silenced. Imaginative retellings matter. Literature does truly instruct and delight—or at least it can. Literature keeps the faith and tells the story as reminder, as witness, as testament. Stories help us see ourselves and talk about ourselves.

I also read but never blogged about the author's Americanah, which was also a 5-star book for me.

A Foreboding of Petrels, by Steve Burrows - #7 in the wonderful birder murder mystery series, this one was particularly interesting as the murder took place at a research lab in Antarctica, so it was interesting to learn about life down there, the logistics and how to deal with the extreme conditions, etc while watching Dominic Jejune, chief detective, figure it all out while on required leave from his job.

This is such a good mystery series--chock full of interesting side characters--and set in the marshy eastern coast of England. Small town stuff, birding stuff, science stuff. All good!

Apart from Reading...

I've started ice skating again. I was practically born on skates--with a Canadian mother, there was really no choice. I speed skated until age 11, then shifted to figure skating through high school. And then, I stopped skating except very occasionally, sold my custom skates since they no longer fit, and didn't skate for about 20 years...while the body aged. I bought a pair of skates and have been four times in the last two weeks, with two of my adult kids, and am really enjoying the change of pace. As I say, I have the muscle memory...just not the muscles anymore. Pictures of me on the ice will not be forthcoming.

Finished season three of The Gilded Age and cannot wait until season 4 is released later this year. What an exceptionally good show. I loved everything about it. Will start current season of Bridgerton soon.

Resumed watching Mad About You--Jamie and Paul are finally pregnant. I loved this show in the 1990's and am so impressed with all the great comedians that Paul Reiser induced to be on his show. We're talking Carl Reiner, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Stephen Wright, and I know Carol Burnett shows up as Jamie's mom later on. And then, of course, there were the crossovers with other NBC shows: namely Friends and Seinfeld.

Set up to record the new Count of Monte Cristo on PBS, which starts on March 22. Gearing up to watch Death by Lightning about the assassination of President James Garfield.

Tried to watch How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, assuming it would be like Derry Girls, but too weird and spooky for me.

Watched the first two episodes of the rebooted Scrubs. Definitely a keeper!

Happy Spring! So glad we are back on daylight savings time--walks in the evening, reading on the back deck in the evening. Garden planning is underway.

Best wishes for a wonderful March full of good books!

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Wed, 4 Mar 2026 09:15:00 -0700

In searching for books about and set in Scotland, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark, was on virtually every list I encountered and since I had not yet read it, I did.

Set in Edinburgh in the 1930s and published in 1962, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie surprised me in how much I disliked it while I was reading it but came to like it later, while I was trying to figure out what to say about it.

Synopsis: Jean Brodie is a forty-something attractive, single teacher at a girls school in Edinburgh. She teaches the middle grade girls--the 11–13-year-olds. She is unconventional in that she doesn't drill her class on the fundamentals but rather wants to instill in them an appreciation and understanding of what she considers high culture and art--classical music, poetry, classical literature, Renaissance art. She selects a set of girls from her class to become her favorites, "her set," and she takes them to concerts and other outings, including tea in her flat.

The school administration disapproves of Miss Brodie's approach to teaching and the fact that she has a set of girls who are loyal to her even as they age out of her classes and move to the senior school. The head mistress tries for years to figure out how to get Miss Brodie to "retire early" and tries to get girls from her set to "betray" her by sharing secrets about her sex life. All the girls know that she is in love with a married man, the art teacher, but having an affair with a single man, the music teacher. The girls never bow to the headmistress's pressure to spill what they know. However, one girl does tell the headmistress that Miss Brodie admires the fascists who are gaining power in Italy and Germany, and that is all the headmistress needs to finally boot Miss Brodie from the school.

I started this book assuming that I would like Jean Brodie and feel awful for the way she was treated. This was not the case. I disliked Miss Brodie intensely--she is arrogant, self-satisfied, selfish, vain, and manipulative. As a teacher, she cared not about actually helping her students but in having them do well in order to make her shine all the brighter. Her love for Mussolini and Hitler and her admiration for their Black Shirts and Brown Shirts was repulsive. She talks about being in her prime--that is, she is at the peak of her beauty, knowledge, intellectual prowess and she is gracing her students with her gifts while she is in her prime.

The writing was interesting in that the narrator never gets us inside Miss Brodie's head, but rather we see what she does and says, often second hand, not what she thinks.

The narrator pegs or labels each of the girls based on Miss Brodie's assessment, and they are stuck with those labels: Eunice was athletic, Jenny was theatrical, Mary was stupid, Monica was known for sex, Rose was beautiful, and Sandy had "little piggy eyes" and fantasized a lot, living out stories in her head. And the narrator repeated these descriptions often, reminding me of the "wine-dark sea" of the Iliad and the Odyssey. These girls were reduced to the labels Miss Brodie attached to them, and in the novel they never have a life apart from the label, except for Sandy who becomes the "one who betrayed her."

When I finished the book, I gave it three stars. After thinking about it for a while, I've upped my rating to four stars. The book is not really about Miss Jean Brodie and the Scottish or Edinburgh school system. It is an allegory for how charismatic leaders can create loyal followers who will blindly support them even when they are shown to be less than perfect.

Written thirty years after the rise of fascism in Europe and almost twenty years after WWII ended, it seems to be an attempt to demonstrate how easily a fascist leader like Mussolini or Hitler could convince seemingly reasonable and rational people to do heinous things.

It is a sobering tale, relevant now in the US like never before. Not a fun book to read, but a powerful message. Maybe it is a five-star book after all.

I've never seen the movie, starring Maggie Smith. I wonder how true to the book it is.

The Brontës

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:08:00 -0700

I've been reading the Brontës for almost my entire life. When I was a young teenager and ready to move from the children's section of the library, my brother Mark recommended Jane Eyre to me. My parents had these wonderful hardback copies of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights that had woodcut illustrations that became burned into my memory.

In compiling this page of all the posts that I've done on the Brontës, I was surprised to find that I've never done a post devoted to either of JE or WH, both of which I have reread many times. Now that I have seen that glaring omission, I will endeavor to correct this on my next rereading.

Now that I have started collecting my thoughts and posts on this wonderfully interesting literary family, I am inspired to rewatch, reread, and read more about them and what they created.

The Novels

Villette, by Charlotte Brontë - mixed feelings about this one. Felt like an exercise in catharsis but worth reading if only to understand Charlotte better.

Agnes Grey, by Anne Brontë - I know there are legions of Anne fans, but I am not among them. I didn't like this book, but I do like Anne in the family. She just didn't have the genius of Charlotte and Emily.

Biographies

The Life of Charlotte Brontë, by Elizabeth Gaskell - I have read this several times, and I really love it. I am a Gaskell fan anyway, and the fact that she was asked to do a bio of her friend Charlotte by Patrick Brontë after Charlotte's death makes it so meaningful and relevant. Yes, it is biased but it was a labor of love and respect. I did a number of posts based on a rereading of this book.

Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë
Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë: In the Hill-Country Silence
Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë: The Professor and "Mode of Composition"
Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë: the French, Branwell, and Ruth

The Taste of Sorrow, by Jude Morgan - Morgan writes wonderful fictional bios and this one, also called Charlotte and Emily, is superb.

The Brontës: Wild Genius of the Moors, by Juliet Barker - a comprehensive bio of the family. My only gripe is that she doesn't respect Gaskell's bio as I do.

Fifteen Wild Decembers, by Karen Powell - the story of the Brontë family, told from Emily's pov. Absolutely wonderful. Gorgeous writing and the depiction of Emily is spot on.

Miscellaneous

Daphne, by Justine Picard - an interesting novel about Daphne du Maurier and her obsession with Branwell Brontë, with weird parallels to the author's own life.

Brontë Humor, Gaskell Bio, and Plath's poem - a truly spur-of-the-moment post about something that struck me while I was reading the Gaskell bio.

Here is the Sylvia Plath poem, Wuthering Heights.

The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte, by Daphne du Maurier - I read this as a teenager and have been wanting to reread it for decades. I'll let you know when I do.

The Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys - I read this roughly 50 years ago as a teenager. I remember feeling that Jane really got shortchanged, but I think that was the point. It is Bertha's story--the first wife, the mad woman in the attic. How she got there and the role Mr Rochester played in her madness.

Cinematic

Brontës of Haworth (1973) - episode 5 - the very dated Brontës of Haworth is absolutely wonderful. I have watched it several times and it is so good. Yes, it was done in 1973, but the storytelling is first rate and the characterization of all the members of the family is perfect. I think they must have used Gaskell's bio as the source material.

To Walk Invisibile - I haven't done a post on this BBC series (though I've mentioned it a few times), but in many ways it is an updated version of the 1973 mini-series. Excellent.

All the movies and series on Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights

George C. Scott was my first Mr. Rochester, but I haven't seen that version of JE in decades. Same with Heathcliff and Lawrence Olivier. I am currently down on adaptations because they invariably disappoint me.

Travels

Travelogue: Haworth - I visited Haworth in 2009 with my then 16-year old daughter, and we had the best time exploring the town, visiting the parsonage and church and museum and pubs. I especially liked walking up on the moors.

More on Keighley or 'Cyhha's Clearing' - this was a nerdy follow-up post to the post about our visit to Haworth. Keithley is the nearby town with the train station.

Does Rick Steves' Hate Haworth - a prequel post made while planning the trip to Haworth. Posted in 2009. It would be interesting to see if more exists on the RS website about Haworth now.

Two Mysteries: Kate Shackleton and Mrs. Blossom

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Mon, 9 Feb 2026 11:22:00 -0700

Happy February!

The Super Bowl was fun, and we enjoyed seeing the Seahawks beat the Patriots since the latter kept the Broncos out of the big show. The commercials were mostly lame--I just cannot get excited about AI and was super-disappointed that Matthew Broderick used his Ferris Bueller persona to encourage companies to use AI to do the work real people need and can do better. I also loathe the ads that encourage people to gamble. The best commercial was the Dunkin one with stand-ins for all our favorite TV characters from days gone by. Fun. I may have to go to Dunkin to show that the ad worked!

The Olympics are fun, although it was heartbreaking to see Lindsey Vonn crash. Those winter sports are, on average, so much more dangerous than the summer ones.

Mysteries

Based on Constance's review on Staircase Wit, I read and enjoyed Death Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman. Our heroine, Muriel Blossom, was an assistant to Lippman's main detective, Tess Monaghan, and is now on a vacation in France where she finds herself at the heart of a murder mystery and she has to figure out who to trust and what the heck is going on. I absolutely enjoyed every minute spent with Mrs. Blossom, as the narrator and most of the other characters call her. I thought only my mother preferred the Mrs. moniker, and since Mrs. B is only a year older than I am, this seemed pretty dated, but that's okay.

Visiting Paris with Muriel was fun--she goes shopping, visits art galleries, and dines in wonderful restaurants. I absolutely loved traveling down the Seine with her, stopping at Versailles, Giverny, Rouen, and Normandy. I especially enjoyed learning about the artist Joan Mitchell, whose home near Giverny Muriel makes a pilgrimage to.

The mystery itself is good and kept me guessing until all was revealed, which is the way I like it.

I've only read one Tess Monaghan mystery, but now I am motivated to read more.

Dying in the Wool, by Frances Brody, is the first in the author's Kate Shackleton series, set in Yorkshire in the post WWI years. There are 11 books in the series, so I imagine they lead up to WWII. Anyway, I digress. This one involves a young widow, Kate, who lost her beloved in the Great War and is beginning a career as a private investigator, having proved to herself that she is quite good at finding lost people. She is commissioned by a friend to discover what happened to the friend's father, mill owner and local bigwig who disappeared following his arrest for attempted suicide.

This was interesting primarily because of the setting and time period--the mystery wasn't riveting although it was well told. I have another in the series and plan to read that as well.

Speaking of Sheep

I was speaking of wool, which comes from sheep, so not too great a leap there!

My daughter just told me about an upcoming Hugh Jackman movie, The Sheep Detectives, which is based on the novel Three Bags Full, by Leonie Swann. Here's the trailer and it looks so much fun. I know what I want to do for Mother's Day!

Orchids, Olympics, Imbolc...Oh, My!

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Sun, 1 Feb 2026 13:49:00 -0700

Having finished only one book since my last post, I decided to bring you a little mid-winter color to brighten things up. The Denver Botanic Gardens has an annual orchid exhibit--I missed it last year, but was desperately in need of color so went last Friday.

This is the display at the entry to the greenhouse.

At the Water's Edge

So, on to the one book I did finish since last post.

I decided to read At the Water's Edge, by Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants, for two reasons.

It is set mostly in the Scottish Highlands, exactly where I am planning to visit in September.
The audiobook was available from my library and I needed something to listen to.

I blithely ignored the many negative reviews on GoodReads and just focused on those that were somewhat positive. It was, I kid you not, one of the dumbest books I've ever actually finished. If I hadn't been so invested in the location, I would have abandoned it.

Here is the GoodReads blurb about it:

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind.

To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war.

Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants.

Sounds reasonable, right? Unfortunately, the entire plot is completely bonkers. The threesome cross the Atlantic in January 1942, as tourists, during WWII, with two of them being able-bodied, rich young men not helping the war effort one iota. The idea that finding the Loch Ness monster would redeem Ellis was impossible to swallow. Maddie comes to loathe both Ellis and Hank, as do we all, but then Ellis starts threatening Maddie with a frontal lobotomy. I found it impossible to believe that Ellis (being the loathsome shirker that he was) would find a doctor in the UK willing to perform such an operation on Maddie.

Nessie does make an appearance near the end of the story. And, like the rest of the book, this encounter was simply ridiculous.

Maddie does find her true love in Scotland, who just happens to turn out to be laird of the land, monarch of the glen, a war hero, and a tender lover. This actually could've been a really great story, but the author made a few fatal mistakes that doomed it to the library dustbin.

The Gilded Age

Much better news on the TV-watching front. I am almost done with season 1 of The Gilded Age. What took me so long? The costumes and sets alone are enough eye-candy to keep me happy, and the characters and their stories are interesting and entertaining.

One of the main characters is Marian Brook, played by Louise Jacobsen, who looked so familiar that I had to look her up. She is Meryl Streep's youngest daughter--no wonder she looked familiar, and she is terrific.

In addition to Marian's story--that of a country girl coming to NYC to live with her old-money aunts after her father dies and leaves her penniless--I am enjoying Peggy's story--a talented African American woman making her way as a journalist despite her Brooklyn parents' objections.

The Winter Olympics

And then we have the Olympics from Milan (ice events) and Cortina (alpine events). I love figure skating, hockey, speed skating, downhill skiing, and all the other events. Should be a really fun two weeks.

And then I can start planning my garden!

Happy Imbolc

Beating the January Blahs

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:29:00 -0700

Getting through January always requires a stack of good books. Here are some winners that have been doing the trick for me.

The Wedding People

The Wedding People, by Alison Espach, was as good as all the hype around it. I saw it on so many blogs last year and was super excited when my turn in the library queue finally came. I went into the book not even knowing the premise, and I was a bit shocked when I found out what Phoebe's intentions were. For those of you living under a rock (as I was!), here's the GoodReads blurb:

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In very short order, I found myself rooting for Phoebe as she found herself first clinging to life and then embracing it. I loved how we learned about all the various wedding people through their conversations with Phoebe. In a way, she reminded me of Austen's Anne Eliot in Persuasion--the person everyonr feels comfortable in confiding in. And, I ended up liking all of the wedding people--including the poor Bridezilla and the horrible ex-husband--just proving my maxim that everybody has a story worth hearing. That said, I loved where Phoebe ended up and I hope that Espach follows up the success of this novel with a sequel.

The Bookseller of Inverness

As part of my Reading Scotland project in anticipation of a planned trip there in September, I devoured The Bookseller of Inverness, by S.G. Maclean. I gave it a solid 5 stars on GoodReads for being a whopping good historical novel, thoroughly researched and chockful of interesting, believable characters, hair-raising adventures, and detailed descriptions of many places I plan to visit this fall. Again, here is the GoodReads blurb:

After Culloden, Iain MacGillivray was left for dead on Drumossie Moor [1745]. Wounded, his face brutally slashed, he survived only by pretending to be dead as the Redcoats patrolled the corpses of his Jacobite comrades.

Six years later, with the clan chiefs routed and the Highlands subsumed into the British state, Iain lives a quiet life, working as a bookseller in Inverness. One day, after helping several of his regular customers, he notices a stranger lurking in the upper gallery of his shop, poring over his collection. But the man refuses to say what he's searching for and only leaves when Iain closes for the night. The next morning Iain opens up shop and finds the stranger dead, his throat cut, and the murder weapon laid out in front of him - a sword with a white cockade on its hilt, the emblem of the Jacobites.

With no sign of the killer, Iain wonders whether the stranger discovered what he was looking for - and whether he paid for it with his life. He soon finds himself embroiled in a web of deceit and a series of old scores to be settled in the ashes of war.

The notes at the end by the author provided me with a list of excellent books on the Jacobites. I know I don't have time to read them all, but such wonderful choices to have.

The author has dozens of books listed on GR, some appeal more than others, but the Alexander Seaton series, set in Scotland in the 1620s, looks promising. Has anyone read anything by this author that they can recommend?

Nightshade

Nightshade (Catalina#1), by Michael Connelly, is the first in a new series, this time featuring a sheriff stationed on the island of Santa Catalina, off the coast of California and opposite LA. This is vintage Connelly--good characters, good mystery, good love-to-hate villains, good action, good side threads...but this time, fantastic setting. I spent half my time reading this book looking for places to stay on Catalina. I would seriously love to go there for a vacation. I think Connelly must have a connection to the island because I remember Mickey Haller (the Lincoln Lawyer) going there with one of his girlfriends after he and his wife divorced.

Oh...you probably want to know what this one is about. Here's the GR blurb:

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.
Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

Surviving the Winter

This winter has been mostly mild and dry and windy in Colorado, with just a bit of snow and a few frigid days. We need more or we'll be facing drought conditions this coming summer.

Go Broncos! I just started watching football two seasons ago, but cheering on the Denver Broncos in the face of all the nay-sayers has been fun. I even bought myself a game-day tee-shirt! Those of you who have visited the Denver airport might recognize, Blucifer, the giant, blue, demon horse that most of us love and that epitomizes the Broncos for me!

Finally watching season five of Only Murders in the Building--we pulled our Hulu subscription after the Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle but decided Disney had suffered enough and reinstated Hulu to watch Mabel, Charles, and Oliver solve the latest murder in the building. I am absolutely loving Selena Gomez's wardrobe this season.

Listening to Austen's Mansfield Park in preparation for our region's February discussion of the novel. BTW, I found a free audio version on Audiobooks, courtesy of LibriVox. The reader, Karen Savage, is doing a fine job, although I don't care for her Mary Crawford voice. I plan to scan an annotated version before the meeting in order to find some interesting tidbits to share.

Went to the Denver Art Museum Pissarro exhibit and decided I want to live in most of the places he painted. Here are a couple of favorites:

Best wishes for a successful survival of January. Tell me how you beat the mid-winter blahs.

Rise to Rebellion - Jeff Shaara

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Fri, 9 Jan 2026 16:20:00 -0700

After watching the Ken Burns's multipart series on the American Revolution, I knew I had to read Jeff Shaaara's two-part series on the same topic.

Rise to Rebellion is a novel starting in 1770 with the lead-up to the Boston Massacre and ending with the Declaration of Independence and Washington's move to protect New York from the British invasion in July 1776. As with all the Shaara novels I've read so far--both Killer Angels by Jeff's father, Michael, and the other Civil War novels by Jeff, the author tells the story through the eyes of a handful of people. In this case, we follow primarily George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams, and British commander Thomas Gage, with a sprinkling of other players.

The novel was inspiring and extremely well done. While I know that Shaara had to invent much of the dialogue, the big show pieces were all drawn from the players' letters and other written works, and so it felt as authentic as a piece of fiction could feel. Plus, all the characters felt completely consistent with what I already knew about them.

One of the most interesting aspects were the maps that Shaara included, particularly of Boston Harbor. This image isn't from the book, but it shows what I mean. The city of Boston is practically an island, with just a thin neck connecting it to the mainland in the south. I asked a JASNA friend from Boston for help in understanding how modern Boston came to be, with so much water filled in, and he recommended Gaining ground : a history of landmaking in Boston by Nancy Seasholes. A copy is currently enroute to my local library!

What I learned from all the Civil War reading I've done over the years, and what any decent historian already knows, is that geography plays a huge role in any event. Until reading this novel and studying the maps, I really didn't have a good sense of how vulnerable Boston was, how isolated, and how the British navy terrorized it.

It was great to dive into the details, sometimes day by day, often month by month of the six years leading up to July 4, 1776. Some things I knew from school, past reading, the Ken Burns special, the John Adams near obsession I have, but so much was new to me.

One of the most moving sections was when Dr Joseph Warren, one of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, took up a musket and fought as a soldier, although he had the rank of general at this point, during the Battle of Bunker Hill, on Breed's Hill. He was a man ready to die for his convictions, not merely someone who talked big but left the work to others. A true hero of the revolution, who inspired those around him with both his words and finally his actions. The image on the cover of the book is a painting of the death of Warren on Breed's Hill.

I also absolutely loved the section detailing Franklin's time in London as agent of several colonies. I really need to read a bio of Franklin. I read one decades ago, but that was...decades ago!

I am hoping to visit Boston vicinity this year--last year's trip was cancelled due to my husband's back issues--but the Isabella Stewart Gardiner art museum is still beckoning, and now I was to revisit Concord (here's a link to my travelogue from 2012), as well as re-walk the Freedom Trail.

I stumbled upon this article a few days ago: The five best TV shows about the American revolution – recommended by a historian. How apt!

I watched most of Washington's Spies but now feel the need to watch it again...and finish it this time.
How did the special on Franklin, starring Michael Douglas, escape my notice?
I wonder if I can still find the 1997 Liberty online? If not, there is always the library. I'll bet mine has this as a DVD.

Anything else I should add to my reading/watching list?

My Year in Books -- Happy Hogmanay

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 15:27:00 -0700

Here are my GoodReads stats for 2025:

As you can tell by the average rating of 4.1, I loved a lot of books in 2025.

Let's just say, I love my reading life. Taking good care of my eyes is a priority. Macular degeneration is not going to defeat me!

77 books and 26k pages feels so good! I read a variety of favorite authors and discovered some new ones. I enjoyed a bunch of mysteries, historical fiction, and nonfiction, including some terrific memoirs.

I have a hard time picking favorites, but here's a few that I will definitely reread:

The Briar Club, by Kate Quinn
Emma, by Jane Austen
The Heirloom Gardener, by John Forti
Fifteen Wild Decembers, by Karen Powell
The Last Bookshop in London, by Madeline Martin
John Adams, by David McCullough
The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

My very best wishes to all of you for a happy and healthy 2026. May your days be merry and bright, and may all of your reading choices yield 5-star books.

Happy Hogmanay - 2026 is my year of Scottish reading, so I baked shortbread yesterday and shared some with my neighbors

No Longer AWOL - Life Throws a Curveball

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 18:32:00 -0700

I'm back. It's been almost a month since my last post, but I have more than just holiday mayhem to blame for my absence.

Alright, I admit that I didn't post in the first two weeks because I hadn't finished anything worth writing about, or basically anything at all.

And then, my husband had surgery on Monday, December 15, Mother Nature blew into Colorado causing massive power outages, my husband had emergency surgery on Friday, December 19, due to complications (aka a blood clot), Christmas wasn't slowing down for anyone, and here we are...but I do have a couple of books finished to report on and things are looking up.

The Literal Backstory (not for the squeamish, potentially too much info)

It all began... back in November 2024 when Jeff was playing pickleball with daughter Emily and hurt his hip. After many doctor visits, x-rays, and MRIs, the diagnosis was that he had a couple of things going on.

Arthritis in his hip that means hip replacement is probably in his future. But the biggie was that a couple of discs in the lower back had disintegrated (due to age) so much that they were causing a bulge on his spinal column. He had multiple injections of steroids to try to avoid surgery, but they didn’t help much or for long. When we went to Baltimore and Gettysburg, walking was painful, but standing was worse. Despite that, we did have a great trip.

His neurosurgeon and he agreed that surgery was the best option for the long term. He was originally scheduled for surgery on January 6, but there was a cancellation and since the pain was worsening daily, he took the cancellation. On Monday, December 15 he had a 5-hour surgery to clean out the corroded disks and replace them with a combo substance that is held together with pins and rods while the new stuff fuses together to create bone (a six-week process before he can start PT). The surgery went well and Jeff came home on Wednesday, December 17. However, by end of day on Thursday, he was experiencing sharp pain in his right thigh, and he had stopped being able to pee. We called the doctor at 6 am on Friday, right when Xcel turned off the power to our house, and they said to go to the ER at the hospital in Louisville (CO not KY) where Jeff had the surgery. Emily came over and drove us down because we couldn’t open the garage door because the power was out.

An MRI revealed that Jeff had a hematoma (aka blood clot) above the surgical site and it was pressing on the spinal column, inhibiting the valve that opens and closes, enabling him to pee, and causing the pain. The doc and team went in a second time. An MRI after the second surgery showed that they got most of the problem but not all, so they put in two drains and put him on a blood clotting med post-surgery.

The drains worked well, and they were removed on Sunday, and he came home in the afternoon. So far, he is doing well, although he has to have a catheter until Jan 2 (that was the earliest appt we could get), while his bladder heals from being stretched. He will be seeing a hematologist in late Jan to check whether he has any blood-clotting issues that might surface in the event of future surgeries.

The big concern now is that there is not permanent nerve damage, but his spirits are good and he hasn’t experienced the kind of pain that he did last week. So, fingers crossed that all will be well.

The moral of the story...go for a walk instead of playing pickleball!

What I've Been Reading

Reading is truly the best medicine. Audiobooks kept me company on the solo trips to the hospital, and regular books provided a welcome respite from worry and fatigue. I was able to read in a cold, dark house while the wind raged due to my around-the-neck reading light.

The Autobiography of Santa Claus, by Jeff Guinn - a solid 3-star holiday book. The premise if very cute, and this reads like a young YA novel, providing a good survey of the past 2000 years of European/North American Christian history. The story starts in Turkey with St Nicholas as a big-hearted orphan boy who falls in love with giving gifts (using the money left to him when his parents died) to those less fortunate. The magic is that Nicholas is blessed with seemingly eternal life and the ability to move around very quickly--he acquires a wife and helpers, some of whom are quite notorious (e.g., Attila the Hun, King Arthur, Leonardo da Vinci, Ben Franklin). We learn how his reality adjusted to the myths about him--e.g., why he acquired reindeer and how they learned to fly. There is a running and tiresome joke about his girth and love of food.

I don't mean to sound negative--I enjoyed reading this book. It was easy and earnest and feel good, all of which I needed and appreciated. However, I probably would not read anything more in this series--it is first in a series dubbed The Christmas Chronicles.

Selected Tales from Beatrix Potter - this was a gift from Michelle, by GoodReads buddy and host of True Book Talk, last Xmas, and I loved every story and especially Potter's charming and iconic illustrations. In addition to rereading about poor Peter Rabbit, I also read about Timmy Tiptoes, the Pie and the Patty-Pan, and Johnny Town-Mouse. This lovely book now has a place of honor on my shelf with the china Potter figurines my mother gave me when I was pregnant with my first baby.

The Last Bookshop in London, by Madeline Martin - loved this book so much that I almost gave it 5 stars. I do wish GoodReads allowed half stars! Here's the GoodReads blurb:

Inspired by the true World War II history of the few bookshops to survive the Blitz, The Last Bookshop in London is a timeless story of wartime loss, love and the enduring power of literature.
August 1939: London prepares for war as Hitler’s forces sweep across Europe. Grace Bennett has always dreamed of moving to the city, but the bunkers and blackout curtains that she finds on her arrival were not what she expected. And she certainly never imagined she’d wind up working at Primrose Hill, a dusty old bookshop nestled in the heart of London.
Through blackouts and air raids as the Blitz intensifies, Grace discovers the power of storytelling to unite her community in ways she never dreamed—a force that triumphs over even the darkest nights of the war.

Grace is a wonderful heroine who discusses the magic of reading and does her bit in the war by ensuring that others can find solace, comfort, and courage in books.

My brother Mark recently sent me an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about How reading can help older adults boost brain health and moods. It was an interesting article, but one of the main takeaways for me is that reading is actually a social activity. Even if you aren't in a book club or engage with something like GoodReads, you are still making connections with the author, the characters and their stories, and the countless other people who have read and loved the book.

I also really enjoyed reading about the Blitz in London. Interesting side note, Grace and her love interest (an RAF pilot) get to know each other over the years through their letters. They actually only occasionally meet up when he has leave. This exactly mirrors my own parents' courtship--they met and dated once or twice and then wrote to each other for over a year. My dad gave my mom books to read and my mom recommended music for my dad to listen to.

Madeline Martin has a slew of similar books that all look equally good, so new favorite author?

What I've Been Watching

Thanks to everyone who posted about The Diplomat. Before Jeff's surgery we had made it through season 1 and had just started season 2. So good.

Also, we started Nobody Wants This at about the same time and got about as far. Through season 1 and a few episodes in season 2. It stars Kristen Bell, who I thought was great as Veronica Mars, and the rabbi looked and sounded so familiar I had to IMBD him and discovered he was Dave Rygalski (Lane's first boyfriend) in Gilmore Girls (aka Adam Brody). The writing is absolutely excellent and the cast delivers!

I've also been watching Netflix Xmas rom-coms with daughters and Jeff when he finally came home--they're easy, uncomplicated, and just fun. My favorite was Jingle Bell Heist, but I also liked A Merry Little Ex-Mas with Alicia Silverstone, My Secret Santa, Christmas at the Chalet, and Christmas on the Alpaca Farm. This is the absolute first year I have indulged, but I needed indulgence to get me through the past two weeks.

November Wrapup - Art Thievery, Post-WWII Shenanigans, News from Three Pines, Holiday Schmaltz

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 16:44:00 -0700

We finally had our first snow last night and now it is cold. Didn't get above 20 degrees F today, but that didn't stop us from picking out the perfect Christmas tree. Holiday decorating is in full swing, and my first puzzle of the season is underway. I'm having my first hot chocolate of the season and looking forward to turkey sandwiches with leftover fixin's for dinner tonight.

John Forti, the Heirloom Gardener, shared this poem on Facebook this morning, and I fell in love with it.

November Comes and November Goes

by Elizabeth Coatsworth

Here's what I read in November:

The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel - everybody seems to be reading this right now, which is how I found out about it, and it is a compelling story. However, I came to loathe Stéphane Breitwieser, his girlfriend and accomplice, and his idiot of a mother who destroyed much of the art her son stole in order to save her skin.

What an arrogant twit of a human to steal art from not only museums, but castles, churches, and galleries all because the piece "moved" him. What about the rest of us who also are moved by art, who plan trips around visits to museums that house the works we want to see in person?

I was also so frustrated by the incredibly light sentences all three of these poor excuses for human beings received. And my annoyance with all involved in this book didn't end with the culprits or the lack of justice, but Michael Finkel, the author, also fell in my estimation when in the notes at the end he confessed that he was present when Stéphane stole a book out of the museum they visited together. Why Finkel didn't say, "go put it back" I will never know. He almost seemed to think it was funny. I didn't.

If I ever find out that Stéphane was compensated in any way for his participation in the creation of the book, I think my head will explode. All that said, it was an interesting book.

The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair - my JASNA friend, Pam, recommended this book, and I loved it. First in a series (Sparks and Bainbridge #1), the setting (post-WWII London) was terrific and the characters were so fun. Iris Sparks is a former trained spy who cannot talk about what she did in the war and Gwen Bainbridge is a war widow whose son is heir to a title. They meet at a wedding and decide to open a marriage brokerage (I guess before the advent of online dating there really were marriage brokers). One of their clients is murdered and another of their clients is charged with the crime--Sparks and Gwen don't think the police got the right man and so resolve to solve the case. I'm eager to read the next in the series, and it will be interesting to see if they remain in the marriage business or morph into detectives. One of the things that I really liked about this book is that both main characters grew and developed and learned stuff about themselves--they were real, multi-faceted people with baggage and a lot of heart.

The Grey Wolf, by Louise Penny - #19 in the fabulous Armand Gamache series, once again the stakes are sky high as Armand and his team race against time to find out who is behind the plot to poison Montreal's drinking water and how they can be stopped. We armchair travel to monasteries in Canada and France, and we spend quality time (never enough) in Three Pines. Be forewarned, however, this book ends with a cliffhanger, and the story is picked up in Penny's latest, The Black Wolf.

The Christmas Shoppe, by Melody Carlson - this was a yawner, at best a 3-star book but in actually more like 2.5. Mysterious woman comes to town, everybody is against her because she has a witchy vibe, she opens a thrift store, everyone who goes there finds an object that heals whatever wound has been festering inside. She disappears at the end. I wanted a great holiday read, but this was just same-old, same-old.

Now I am reading The Autobiography of Santa Claus, which is turning out to be much better!

Nonfiction November

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 14:08:00 -0700

I figured I should do at least one post for Nonfiction November before November becomes December.

So, I am combining some of the prompts into one sort of comprehensive post.

Here's what I read or in the midst of reading:

History

John Adams, by David McCullough - a reread about my favorite founding father

Paired with The Ninth Daughter, by Barbara Hamilton - Abigail Adams solves a murder mystery in 1773

A Field Guide to Gettysburg: Experiencing the Battlefield through Its History, Places, and People, by Tom Vossler - really helped me get a handle on what I wanted to focus on during our October visit
The Battle of Gettysburg, by Bruce Catton - excellent review of this decisive battle

Paired with Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, reread in Jan 2025

Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War, by Tony Horwitz - a reread, prepping for my stop at Harpers Ferry in October
The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace, by H.W. Brands - excellent bio of a complex man
Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England, by Thomas Penn - a reread but so interesting

Gardening/Nature

The Heirloom Gardener: Traditional Plants and Skills for the Modern World, by John Forti - so much wisdom and knowledge packed in this beautiful book
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer - Robin inspires me to be more grateful and more generous--there is enough for all of us!

Memoirs

Be Ready When the Luck Happens, by Ina Garten - I'm ready!
The Third Gilmore Girl: A Memoir, by Kelly Bishop - Emily is my favorite Gilmore Girl
What I Ate in One Year, by Stanley Tucci - always inspires me to eat more pasta
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Jane Goodall - very calming
Making It So, by Patrick Stewart - inspired me to watch a few seasons of Star Trek: Next Generation
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, by Helene Hanff - so fun to visit London with Helene

Still Reading

The Art Thief, by Michael Finkel - what a selfish pair of twits!
The Caledonian Canal, by A.D. Cameron - planning a trip to Scotland in 2026 with a focus on hiking at least part of the way from Fort William to Inverness
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, by Bettany Hughes - I got stuck on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus but plan to finish it up by year's end.

Picking Favorites

All the reading I did around the American Civil War was so interesting and helped make my October visit to Gettysburg as good as it turned out to be. This part of American history has been a strong interest since I was in high school.
Both of the gardening/nature books were incredible and while not-exactly life-changing were definitely life-affirming.

Looking Ahead to 2026

Scotland - we are planning a trip to Scotland and so I will be reading both fiction and nonfiction about this region of the world.

American Revolution - with the new Ken Burns documentary and my recent reread of John Adams, I will likely be reading up on this time period, again both fiction and nonfiction.

American Civil War - not done with this topic by a long shot

Art and Music - I have a slew of books on art, and since resuming piano lessons in 2024, I am interested in reading up on composers, music theory, etc.

Memoirs - I like memoirs of people I have admired over the years and rely on fellow bloggers' post almost exclusively in this area. So, thanks in advance!

Season of Mysteries, Witchery, and Magic

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 12:37:00 -0700

What a mild Fall we are having in Colorado. No snow yet, not even on Halloween. I've been slowly putting the garden to bed. Geraniums and begonias are now inside, but the pots of herbs are still on the deck and thriving.

My Christmas cacti are doing their usual pre-Thanksgiving show, which I love, and I'm gearing up to start working on the Civil War quilt again, and toying with the idea of bringing out the puzzle table. The Winter lights are up on the outside of the house, but pumpkins and leaves are still the main decor inside.

I do love the changing seasons. No, I didn't get to see the Northern Lights display last week. Did any of you?

Here's what I've been reading this season:

Run for the Hills, by Kevin Wilson - I finally got my turn for the audio from the library and was not disappointed. It didn't blow me away like Now is Not the Time to Panic, (the other Wilson book I've read and which I gave 5 stars), but it was still fresh and quirky and interesting and moving. Mid-way through, I started seeing it as a Wizard of Oz story, and lo, the narrator ended up spelling that out near the end--and here I thought I was being clever in making the connection. Anyway, I liked all of the weird characters, never understood the psychological misfires of the dad, but loved how the siblings ended up learning to become a family despite him.

Mysteries

Dance of Cranes, by Steve Burrows - #7 in the fabulous birder-murder series. Our UK police detective, Dominic Jejeune is back in his native Canada, implementing a plan to save his girlfriend from a heinous felon who is back on the loose and out for vengeance against those who incarcerated him. As always, I enjoyed the characters, setting, birding, and convoluted mystery immensely. At 392 pages, these are not short books, but such a pleasure to read. So much more than simple whodunits.

The Rising Tide, by Ann Cleeves - #10 in the Vera Stanhope series, and what a treat. Most of the action takes place on and around Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, off the eastern edge of England, and the plot deals with old friends who reunite every five years to celebrate their decades-old friendship. Great plot, great setting, such fun to read.

Lindisfarne is in the top 10 places I hope to visit in the not-too-distant future, and I love reading about places I've been or plan to visit.

Mrs. Malory: Death of a Dean, by Hazel Holt - I am quickly becoming addicted to this series, and this is #7. I am not reading them in order, which is fine, but as I find them in used bookstores and my library. This time the story has definite Trollope overtones as the Dean of a cathedral is murdered, and Sheila Malory, as a friend of the family, is bent on finding the killer who just may be one of said family! Also, I good bit of it takes place in Stratford, so again, the setting was just marvelous, and again, is a place I've visited.

Bosch Books - I listened to two Harry Bosch detective novels, The Burning Room and The Crossing, #17 and #18 in the series -- both were excellent and read by Titus Welliver, the actor who plays Bosch in the TV series. Very meta but also very good, just cementing him in my brain as Harry.

Witchy Magic

Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman - After reading and enjoying The Rules of Magic last year, I finally got around to reading Practical Magic. Halfway through I wasn't sure I was liking it, but I did end up enjoying it quite a bit. I know I should watch the movie, and I have read about how the book and movie differ, so fully prepared. And I have almost a year to watch the movie before the sequel, Practical Magic 2, comes out next September.

TV Stuff

We are rewatching the John Adams mini-series with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. Last episode is tonight, and then we move on to the new Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution, which started on PBS last night.

We are also rewatching Never Have I Ever, which is a delightful three-season show with great dialogue and wonderful characters. It's a Mindy Kaling thing, and is funny, touching, and a good palate cleanser before going to bed.

Just finished the current season of The Great British Bakeoff last week and hoping they will have some holiday specials again this year. Every time I watch it, I am inspired to try some of the signature bakes, but then I have a cup of tea and wait for the urge to pass! Hope I am not spoiling this for anyone, but Jasmine is totally amazing!

Still watching the current season of The Amazing Race and making the Romanian mici that were featured in last week's episode for dinner tonight. I think risotto will go well with them.

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone, whether you celebrate or not! Thanksgiving is just such a perfect holiday. Giving thanks to the universe for the air we breathe just works.

Travelogue: Gettysburg National Military Park

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Sun, 9 Nov 2025 14:07:00 -0700

Our trip to Gettysburg in mid-October was everything I had hoped it would be.

We stayed at the Gettysburg Hotel, right smack dab in the middle of the town diamond (aka the town square) where Samuel Gettys established a tavern at the crossroads of roads from Baltimore and Philadelphia-Pittsburgh in 1760. His son James bought a bunch of land and subdivided it into lots and established the town that bears his name.

Fun Fact: the Gettysburg Hotel is catty-corner to the David Wills house, where Lincoln spent the night before he delivered the Gettysburg Address during the dedication of the national cemetery on November 19, 1863.

We arrived late on Monday afternoon, driving up from Harpers Ferry, and walked to dinner in the rain. Then, for the next three and half days, the sun shone, the breeze was light, and the air was fresh and clean.

One of the most fundamental things to know about Gettysburg before you visit is that there are monuments everywhere. The preserved battlefield is huge, and the Park Service and the Gettysburg Foundation (which runs the Visitor Center, including the museum) have worked hard to restore it in terms of vegetation and buildings to how it was on June 30, 1863, so you really can see how the topograghy informed the army commanders as they deployed their troops and armaments.

But, there are monuments everywhere. Actually, most of the monuments are located where the regiments they commemorate saw fiercest action or accomplished something significant or were destroyed. Touring Gettysburg, you never forget that this is truly hallowed ground.

Speaking of touring Gettysburg, I read that the best way to get the most out of a visit, especially for a first visit, is to hire one of the licensed battlefield guides. I booked two two-hour tours--10 am to 12 noon--on consecutive days, with day 1 covering the battle on July 1 and half of July 2, and day 2 covering the rest of July 2 and July 3. As luck would have it, I booked with Phillip Musket, the guide featured in this YouTube video about what it takes to become a guide. He was absolutely fabulous, and he enabled us to make the most of our time in Gettysburg.

We didn't have time to do everything I wanted to in just three and half days, but one of the most memorable experiences I had was walking the mile from Seminary Ridge to Cemetery Ridge, just as the Army of Northern Virginia did on the afternoon of July 3. I was the only person out in the field, which was a bit rough and boggy, but it was a very special time for me to really think about courage and conviction, patriotism, family, and home.

One final note, the museum is huge and fantastic. We spent time there Monday afternoon and Friday morning, but felt rushed and didn't really see everything they had on display. The movie they offer was excellent, but what blew me away was the Cyclorama. It is a 360-degree painting, done on curved panels, depicting "Pickett's Charge" from the afternoon of July 3. It was painted in 1880 by a French artist and was completely restored in 2008. I loved it so much that for my recent birthday my husband gave me a book with photos of all the panels so that I can study it to my heart's content.

Page from the Cyclorama picture book

Here's a smattering of images from our trip:

Outside the Visitors Center

Statues of John Buford and John Reynolds, saving the Union Army on July 1

John Burns, local defending his town

Confederate cannon on the mile-walk east

New York Cavalry Memorial

Union headquarters on the east side of Cemetery Ridge

Union cannon facing west

John and Abigail Adams - First Family and Patriotic Sleuth

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 16:27:00 -0600

While I was rereading the excellent bio of John Adams by David McCullough, I was overcome with the urge to reread, in tandem, the first book in Barbara Hamilton's wonderful trilogy in which wife Abigail solves heinous mysteries. I finished The Ninth Wife on the same day that I finished the John Adams bio--what a treat.

Ten Things I Love About John Adams

No question, John Adams is my favorite Founding Father. Rereading this bio, simply cemented his place in my esteem and affection.

Here are the top 11 things that I love about Adams. I simply couldn't stop at 10.

He was passionate about what he believed in, and he believed in the right of self-government.
He was loving and warm, even hot-tempered, but with the capacity to forgive and forget and acknowledge when he was wrong.
He was very smart and articulate and logical but also compassionate and considerate.
He was self-aware--he acknowledged his pride and ambition and wrestled with whether these were faults or attributes.
He admired, respected, and honored his father as the best of men. He knew a great many "great" men--kings, lords, politicians, statesmen, philosophers, generals, etc., but his father was the best of them all in his eyes.
He took every job he was given seriously and did his best and never shirked his duty, despite hardships to his physical health, his family, and his finances.
He loved Abigail and respected her and listened to her. She was his partner, and he was her "dearest friend."
Despite the lies told about him when he was in office, he never stooped to spreading slander about his political opponents.
He never owned any slaves and championed abolition.
He valued his friends and was the first to extend an olive branch when the friendship fell on hard times.
He had a great sense of humor, loved life, and found joy in all things great and small.

My favorite part of the book was about John's and Abigail's time in Europe--Paris before the French Revolution, the Hague, and London after the American Revolution. Crossing the Atlantic was perilous, but John made the trip many times, the first in the winter. How's that for courage!

I've had First Family, by Joseph J. Ellis on my TBR shelf for way too long, so maybe I will dive into that next. And, I would also love to read more about John Quincy Adams, John and Abigail's eldest son, and Charles Francis Adams, one of their many grandsons.

The Ninth Daughter

As a companion read to the JA bio, I decided to reread The Ninth Daughter, by Barbara Hamilton. October is a perfect month for mysteries, and this is a cracking good one and I like companion novels to dress up my nonfiction reading.

The Ninth Daughter takes place in 1773 in Boston--a young woman that the Adams have befriended is missing and a socialite is found murdered in her home. In the course of searching for her friend, Abigail solves the whodunit, showing pluck, intelligence, determination, and courage as she deals with religious fanatics (remember, the Salem witch hysteria was only 80 years earlier), misogynists, Redcoats (some of them downright decent), Patriots (including good friend Paul Revere and John's cousin Sam, leader of the Sons of Liberty), gossips, skinflints, and nosy neighbors.

With the Boston Tea Party looming in the background, I loved reading about life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Abigail and John have four young children and just one servant to help with the massive work it takes to keep the family fed, clothed, clean, safe, and educated. The details of everyday life really brought the story to life for me. Yes, I love a good mystery, but the atmosphere, the cold and damp of the late fall in Boston, made this one especially good.

I have a lot on my reading plate at the moment, but I am considering rereading the second book in the series, A Marked Man...maybe while I read First Family.

Oh, and rewatching the excellent miniseries with Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney is a no brainer!

Travelogue: Harpers Ferry

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 15:39:00 -0600

"...one of the most stupendous scenes in nature" Thomas Jefferson

Last week, after the JASNA AGM in Baltimore celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday with 950 of my closest friends, my husband and I drove up to Gettysburg, stopping at Harpers Ferry along the way. I kid you not, this was one of the best trips of my life--seeing scenes and countryside that I've read about since I was a teen. Except for a bit of rain on our first night, the weather was lovely--crisp in the morning, clear skies, and mostly sunny all day.

This post is devoted to Harpers Ferry--we only were there for a few hours, but I loved every minute of it.

The Appalachian Trail runs through Harpers Ferry

Harpers Ferry is an old town, first settled in the early 18th century, and the US armory was established there in 1799. It became a factory town for munitions and had a much larger population through most of the 19th century than it does now. John Brown famously attacked the armory in November 1859 in an attempt to instigate a slave uprising that would start the war to end slavery. While the uprising never materialized, John Brown's raid is generally considered the spark that ignited the Civil War.

I had wanted to visit the Kennedy farmhouse where Brown and his family and recruits prepared for the raid, but it is currently closed to visitors. I recently reread Tony Horwitz's fabulous book, Midnight Rising, about John Brown and his mission to end slavery in the US, so visiting this area was very special.

It is at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, and there really was a ferry that was essential to commerce of the region until the railroads arrived in the 1830s, making it an important RR hub. Harpers Ferry changed hands many times throughout the four years of the Civil War and suffered so much destruction that it never fully recovered.

It is in a beautiful location and is absolutely worth visiting for the history and the scenery.

Memorial to John Brown

Engine House where John Brown and gang holed up until arrested

Harpers Ferry

I had been worried about how things would work given the current government shutdown. I am happy to report that the Harpers Ferry Visitor Center was open and the buses that shuttle visitors to the town (virtually no parking in the town itself) were running. I asked the Park Ranger about his status, and he said that the governor of West Virginia authorized funding to keep the park open and the rangers paid, at least for a few weeks.

We were there on the Monday holiday of October 13, and I was happy to see lots of families there, learning about the history of the area and enjoying the beautiful scenery.

And yes, I did get to actually walk a portion of the Appalachian Trail as it runs through the town. We saw some hikers with packs, and I definitely felt the urge to join them!

Stay tuned for my post on Gettysburg. Too many pictures to sort through before I post on that part of the trip.

Catching Up

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Wed, 8 Oct 2025 15:15:00 -0600

It's been a while since I last posted, mostly because I am in the middle of a couple of big books, and I generally wait until I'm done with a book before posting. I'm also about to leave for a 10-day trip and am not sure I'll be posting before I get back.

What I'm Reading

John Adams, by David McCullough - this is a reread but loving this 5-star bio just as much as the first time I read it. I'm 75% done--Adams has just finished his only term as president and is ready to retire to his farm in Massachusetts. He and Abigail were the first residents of the White House and moved in while it was not really completely done, but now they are done with public life and eager to spend time together on their farm.

Reading this has made me want to reread the fabulous mystery trilogy by Barbara Hamilton in which indefatigable Abigail is the sleuth. I picked up book 1 from the library, The Ninth Daughter, and intend to read it on my travels.

Gettysburg,: The Last Invasion, by Allen C. Guezo - yes, the Civil War reading continues unabated. As I jokingly tell my husband, "I am studying for the test." So far, I have the Army command structure memorized for both the Confederates and the Union down to the Brigadier General level, and I am working on memorizing the regiments within the Brigades. Why? Who knows. Actually, I think it helps me to understand the battle of I can think about who is where and with whom and against whom. Let's just call it an obsession and move on.

Where I'm Going

First stop is Baltimore for the Jane Austen Society of North American (JASNA) Annual General Meeting (AGM). This meeting celebrates the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth and is jam-packed with excellent speakers, etc. As always, I am looking forward to scoping out all the wonderful outfits people put together--no, I don't dress up in Regency garb, but I enjoy seeing others do so!

After the AGM, my husband and I are hanging around Baltimore for a day and a half. As it turns out, the Pride of Baltimore II will be dockside, and we've booked a two-hour cruise on it for Sunday afternoon. Then, maybe the National Aquarium on Monday. There are lots of interesting options, so stay tuned.

And then, drumroll please...we're heading up to Gettysburg. I've booked two two-hour sessions with a battlefield guide for consecutive mornings. And then, there is the self-guided audio tour, plus hiking trails around the battlefield, the visitor's center (which is supposed to be fantastic), and the town itself.

In addition to the reading I've been doing, I've been listening to the Addressing Gettysburg podcast, which I cannot recommend highly enough. The host and the guest speakers, mostly battlefield guides, are interesting and entertaining.

We'll end our trip with a drive south through Shenandoah National Park, stopping first at Harper's Ferry for a quick walkaround.

Books for the Plane

In addition to The Ninth Daughter, I am bringing a few other mysteries to read on the road. After all, it is October, the season of spooky books!

Fifteen Wild Decembers

jagreensmith@yahoo.com (Jane Greensmith) — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 13:32:00 -0600

Fifteen Wild Decembers, by Karen Powell, is the story of the Brontë family with Emily as the first-person narrator. I've read a lot of Brontë bios and fictional renderings over the years, so there wasn't anything new or startling regarding the basic outline of the story but oh, the writing. It is lyrical, incredibly moving, and such a strong voice for Emily. Absolutely loved every minute I spent reading this book. I knew the ending, but Emily narrates her own death as only Emily Brontë could do. Incredible.

My main takeaway is that the portrayal of Emily in this novel meshed perfectly with my view of Emily and all of the Brontës. She doesn't reinvent them; she honors their words, and when there are no words or facts, she finds plausible words and motivations based on what we do know about them. Definitely a 5-start novel.

The title comes from Emily's poem Remembrance, which was included in the book of poems self-published by the three sisters. Below is the third stanza of the poem, which was originally written about one of the characters in the fantasy country, Gondal, that Emily and sister Anne created and expanded on over at least fourteen years. In Fifteen Wild Decembers, Powell has Emily realizing that the poem is actually about the deaths of the oldest Brontë sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who died while Emily was still a young child.

Cold in the earth—and fifteen wild Decembers,
From those brown hills, have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

This is truly a work of fiction, and Powell does come up with a reasonable inspiration for Heathcliff and his and Cathy's story in Wuthering Heights. In a nutshell and I hope this doesn't constitute spoilers, but Powell has Emily encounter a wildish boy on the moors, then years later, she sees him as a young man, still on the wild side, and then as the inhabitant of Top Withens, the abandoned farmhouse on the moors above the Brontë parsonage at Haworth. She is fascinated by him, and his presence repeatedly pulls her up to spy on him, to hope to see him, to want to understand him.

Below is the painting of Top Withens that is in my office--I picked up this copy when I visited Haworth in 2009.

I'm starting to feel like I need to create a Brontë page that collects all my various posts on this remarkable family.

I'm also starting to feel like I want to rewatch To Walk Invisible, the excellent biopic from BBC in 2016. Has it really been almost ten years since I watched this?

Emily, Anne, and Charlotte in To Walk Invisible