Shop for Yourself
And Now for Something Completely Unstuffed: OrigaMIT, Paper Architects, Fairy Tales, Explorations in Personal Geographies and Stencil Styles
Tam Gray writes: The holidays may be absorbing our audience but there are readers who may not be gathering, shopping, cooking, conversing and socializing with others during most of these holidays. For you and all those who might be interested in an ancient art easily experimented with from MIT, here's a video and craft books we've selected that can enjoyed as well as considered as gifts. more »
Downton Abbey Returns With New Characters and The Bletchley Circle Plans a Second Season
We admit we couldn't wait any longer for the PBS presentation in early December to introduce Season 4 of Downton Abbey. The actual season debuts with eight new episodes January 5, 2014 on Masterpiece. Six new characters join the cast, a seducer returns, a lady's maid makes off and a new Lord, Gillingham by name, appears ... perhaps to pay suit to Lady Mary? more »
A Selection of Fiction for Children and Young Adult Readers Certain to Make Great Holiday Presents
Jill Norgren writes: Here is an opportunity for grandparents and special friends looking for children’s and young adult books to hear straight from the mouths of young readers. This year I asked about gift suggestions from my granddaughters, 17, 13, and 10, as well as young friends 4 to 15 who live in Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, and New York City. I asked each of them, "which books did you most enjoy reading this past year that you think others your age would also enjoy?" Some of their favorites are new, but many are classics. more »
Pretty Girl: Girl with a Pearl Earring makes a stop at The Frick in New York, the last leg of its American tour
Val Castronovo writes: Girl's head, shoulder, garments and accessories stand out against a dark, solid background, which is blackened now but once was translucent green. The effect is rather like the effect of looking at this painting in an otherwise empty room — just as everything is stripped away in the Oval Room so that our attention is laser-focused on Girl, so everything is stripped away in the background of the painting itself so that we zero in on the figure’s physiognomy and accoutrements, which signal mercantile wealth and prosperity. more »