Theme of the Week
Book of Choice
Reader: Cindy Parkhurst
Author: Anita Diamant
Title: The Red Tent
Call Number: BF 448 .G53 2005
Rating: 5
Summary: I really enjoyed this book! One of my goals this year was to read the Bible through completely. I have been reading it every morning this year and have really enjoyed reading about things that I don’t encounter often. One of those stories I had forgotten about was in Genesis 34 where the Bible talks about Dinah, Jacob’s only named daughter. I read about her and about the trouble she got into when she visited Shechem and became engaged to the prince of the land. Her brothers were not happy with this and killed all the male residents of the city including Dinah’s betrothed.
This summer I found a book that tells the story of Dinah and of Jacob and his family from a female’s perspective. While this is a fictionalized account, it is interesting to see the Biblical story through the eyes of a young girl. This certainly is not a scholarly book and the author takes liberties with the Biblical account of events, but nonetheless it is an interesting read.
Reader: Kitty Simmons
Author: Letitia Baldridge
Title: Taste: Acquiring What Money Can't Buy
Call Number: BJ1853 .B37 2007
Rating: 5
Tasteful or Tacky? If you’re wondering and if you care, this is the book for you!
Summary: Part memoir, part inspiration, this book is definitely not a "how to" guide, but at the end you should have a pretty good grasp of how to manage a tasteful lifestyle. The author’s imminent qualifications for being an arbiter of taste include her service as Social Secretary at the U. S Embassies in Paris and Rome and at the White House during the Kennedy years. She was also Director of Public Relations at the renowned jeweler Tiffany’s. The book is full of examples, anecdotes, and considerable name dropping from the author’s extensive life experience. As the subtitle implies, wealth doesn’t guarantee tasteful results, but the examples included here are more often from the lives of the rich and famous than from those of the plain and simple.
The main areas covered are fashion, entertaining, and interior decoration along with a discussion about the nature of good taste and the importance of incorporating tastefulness into the fabric of life. Lifelong learning is enthusiastically promoted as a vehicle for developing an understanding of taste. Careful observation, analysis, kindness, interest in others, and frequent patronage at museums are also cited as hallmarks of persons with taste.
This is a relatively short book and an easy read. Interspersed among the names and stories are gems that I wanted to underline such as "One is never done with the study of art and design and all the benefits that flow from it" and "Entertaining is an effective way to accomplish a number of life's goals." So I’m buying copies of this book for myself and for my sisters-in-law and nieces. Can’t give a much better recommendation than that!
Kitty J. Simmons, Library Director
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