MAINE’S SUMMER GREENS
Inland a bit from its rocky coast, Maine has stretches of woodland with lots of green. Green trees, conifers of several types, including long-legged cypresses, and also oak and maple trees. Thick ferns line the roadside and, if you time it just right, you might see the local family of turkeys crossing the road. The other morning, just after dawn, out the window and from the deck, was the unexpected delight of a mother deer and her fawn enjoying the morning.
WYETHS AND MORE
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland
The Chief Penguin and I made our second visit to the Farnsworth in Rockland with my sister and brother-in-law. Both interested in art (one creates works in pastels, the other prefers pen and ink), they were keenly focused on the latest exhibit of Andrew Wyeth’s works, some of which had never been publicly exhibited before.
I really liked Andrew Wyeth’s house in the snow with the bike and motorcycle outside and his one wall of a house in Chadds Ford. Jamie Wyeth’s couple on their porch is wonderful and serene and almost monochromatic in its golden hues. I also found his iris a bright note of color against that monolithic white lighthouse. A work new to the collection is of a seated woman with a book. Its somewhat Cubist and Art Deco elements appealed to me.
SUMMER READING FROM MY LIST: WWII SECRET AGENTS
The Librarians of Lisbon by Suzanne Nelson
College graduates, Bea Sullivan and Selene Dumont, a pair of smart young women, meet at work at the Boston Public Library. Each has her reasons for wanting to escape, and when recruited by U. S. Intelligence, they take up the offer to work in Lisbon gathering banned books and articles to share with the Allies.
Bea is quick with a photographic memory, and she soon gets tapped to work undercover as an informant with a Gable, a notorious spy. Glamorous Selene haunts the casinos and clubs on assignment from her handler, Marguerite, but ends up in games of deception with Luca Caldeira, a demoted Portuguese baron. Their work is risky and dangerous, spies do die, and the men Bea and Selene are involved with are both very attractive and yet emotionally elusive.
Inspired by librarians who really did this work, The Librarians of Lisbon, is fast-paced and thrilling. One might think it too neat that both women fall in love with their “colleagues,” but it makes for a very good story overall. For another novel about WWII librarians, I also highly recommend The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin. It’s set in Lisbon and Paris and was published in 2022.
Note: Photos ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)
