Not A Pink Girl
Vera Bradley adds a new color!
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UPDATE: I’ve found the first-ever Vera Bradley ad that features an African-American. It’s in the October 2009 issue of Southern Living (!) magazine, on page 23. I figure the reason it’s in that particular magazine is because it features not just an African-American college-age female, but also… a bulldog. So there’s the Georgia Bulldogs university tie-in. Congratulations, Vera Bradley, for entering the post-1964 era! Now, a request: can you take it a step further & use an African-American (or two, or three) in your next print catalog? Dare to dream… For more on Vera Bradley’s fascination with white-only models, see my blog from June 2008.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett
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Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fascinating piece of historical fiction. I enjoyed this book from start to finish. Believable & engrossing, the story begins just before Henry VIII kicks his first wife to the proverbial curb. It’s a story of Thomas More, his fanatical religious fervor & passions, & his family & hangers-on, one of which was Hans Holbein, the German painter. The characters are deftly sketched which pulled me right into the plot. I highly recommend this if you enjoy biographies of the Tudors & the players in all the intrigues they caused.
The reader of this book is Josephine Bailey. I found her narration to be sublime. I would love to have a voice like hers! She handled the various nationalities & ages of the characters with stunning effect. I’ll look for other audiobooks she reads. One small issue I had with her narration was that I wish she’d spoken a bit slower. I rewound the audiobook to catch what I couldn’t on the first listen.
My life was changed by the death of Janis
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I remember where I was when I found out Janis Joplin died. I was 10 years old & standing on the playground at my Catholic school in Landover Hills MD. My friend walked up to me & said, “Did you know Janis died?” (you didn’t have to say any last name because when I was in 4th grade, there was only one Janis) I ignored her because I knew it wasn’t true. She walked away. The girl I was standing with (Mima) said, “She died Kathie. She took too much drugs. She’s dead.” I remember looking up at the tree near the rectory & looking at the sun’s rays shining through the autumn leaves. I thought, “The sun is shining, but Janis won’t ever see it again.” From that day on, I read every single thing I could about intravenous drug use & about other abused drugs (pot, mushrooms, peyote, speed, quaaludes). Back then we had Newsweek & Time magazines in our school library so I read everything they published about smack, crank, horse, Mary Jane, you name it. I was trying to understand why anyone would voluntarily inject something into their veins to make themselves feel good. I just couldn’t get my mind around it. I think it kept me from abusing drugs.
The Skeleton In The Closet by M.C. Beaton
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The Skeleton in the Closet by M.C. Beaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was pleasantly surprised by this “cozy” mystery! It was fun, moved right along, & was a good mystery. I’m an insatiable Anglophile so I love anything Agatha-Christie-esque. This is modern-day so it didn’t hold a candle to Dame Agatha in that particular, but was still fun to read. This is the first M. C. Beaton I’ve read. I’ll seek out this author’s other novels.
