From Kenyan Coffee to a Search for Kikuyu Women Warriors

As those of you who follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Instagram know, one of the delights of my week in the summer is my Thursday morning trip to the farmers’ market. I chat with the vendors about the plums or the tomatoes or the asparagus, I load up on veggies for the coming week,…

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In Which I Finally Read a Book by Erik Larson

A few weeks ago I picked up Erik Larson’s In the Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Germany. Prior to that I suspect I was one of the few history buggs,(1) at least in the United States, who had never read a book by Larson. This was not a…

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Fly Girls

Quick: Name one historical woman pilot other than Amelia Earhart without resorting to the internet. (1) Aviation history is a regular topic in our household and I could only come up with three: Bessie Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license (2) Jacqueline Cochran (May…

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