Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Two books for TWOsday

Darwin's Dogs: How Darwin's Pets Helped Form a World-Changing Theory of Evolution ~ by Emma Townshend, 2009, evolution, 144 pages

If you have ever looked at a dog waiting to go for a walk and thought there was something age-old and almost human about his sad expression, you’re not alone; Charles Darwin did exactly the same.  But Darwin didn’t just stop at feeling that there was some connection between humans and dogs.  English gentleman naturalist, great pioneer of the theory of evolution, and incurable dog-lover, Darwin used his much-loved dogs as evidence in his continuing argument that all animals (including human beings) descended from one common ancestor.

From his fondly written letters home enquiring after the health of family pets to his profound scientific consideration of the ancestry of the domesticated dog, Emma Townshend looks at Darwin’s life and work from a uniquely canine perspective.

Mistral's Daughter ~ by Judith Krantz, 1983, literary fiction, 500 pages

They were three generations of magnificent red-haired beauties born to scandal, bred to success, bound to a single extraordinary man — Julien Mistral, the painter, the genius, the lover whose passions had seared them all.
  • Maggy:  Flamboyant mistress of  Mistral’s youth, the toast of Paris in the‘20s.  Her luminous flesh was immortalized in the  paintings that made Mistral legendary.
  • Teddy:  Maggy’s daughter, the incomparable cover girl who lived fast and left as her legacy Mistral’s dazzling love child.
  • Fauve:   Mistral's daughter, the headstrong, fearless glory girl whose one dark secret drove her to rule the world of high fashion and to risk everything in a feverish search for love.
From the ‘20s Paris of Chanel, Colette, Picasso, and Matisse, to New York’s new modeling agencies of the ‘50s, to the model ward of the ‘70s, Mistral's Daughter captures the glamour of life at the top of the worlds of art and high fashion.

A friend handed me Mistral's Daughter one day, saying she didn't want it back.  She didn't even finish it.  Yeah, it's too long and what I skimmed didn't grab me, so I'll let Risé trade it for something Crown Center readers may find more interesting.

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