Catherine S. Vodrey

Exceptionally pretty book with good advice, Oct 14 2003

Weaver, artist, colorist, free spirit--Susan Sargent is all these and more. After having trained and worked in textile art in Scandinavia, Sargent brought her bold, free-wheeling color and pattern sensibility back to the United States, where it has had a considerable impact on modern country decorating. Once the province of dove greys, white, taupe and beige, the boundaries of country decorating have been pushed out by Sargent, who is interested in helping us not be afraid of pattern and color--and in fact, she urges us to embrace both.

The book is an exhilarating visual punch. Sargent blithely combines acid green, periwinkle, daffodil, a deep coral red and a host of other colors to… Read more

An extroardinary overview of candies the world over, Oct 14 2003

Tim Richardson's "Sweets: A History of Candy" is an extraordinary overview of confections from all over the world, and all through recorded history. He covers every continent (with special attention paid to the Brits and the Americans, who both have an enormous national sweet tooth) and every conceivable type of candy, from milk- and cream-based confections to those which have their foundations in nuts and fruits to those commonly enrobed in chocolate and beyond.

There is apparently nothing which cannot be made somehow into a sweet. Richardson reports that in India, "sherbet" is made from ground-up chickpea powder, sugar and baking soda. The Maoris, in the early… Read more

Immensely enjoyable, if truncated, autobiography, Oct 14 2003

You should know going in to Peter O'Toole's "Loitering with Intent" that it is intended less as a full autobiography (it ends with his teenage years shortly after the end of WWII) and more as an impressionistic canvas of growing up in Europe during 20th century wartime. Bearing this in mind, you will find this both immensely enjoyable and hauntingly well-written.

O'Toole's recollections of his parents--a gorgeous, flirtatious mother and a handsome, ne'er-do-well father--are rich with detail and emotion. He remembers also their friends, their tribulations (and pet mouse!) during WWII, and perhaps most vividly of all, his enforced sojourn in the English countryside when city life was… Read more