Last year, my birthday plans included a trip to Omaha to visit the Joslyn Art Museum followed by lunch and book shopping in the historic Old Market downtown. These plans were cut short by an incoming blizzard. I still went to the Joslyn but I left early in the hopes that I could get ahead of the storm. I did not. I was on the expressway when the storm’s leading edge came in with a blinding downpour. It was an awful driving experience but not the worst I’ve faced, and I was safely ensconced at home when the main part of the blizzard arrived that afternoon with 60+ mph winds and heavy snow. I tried that Omaha trip again this year with better results thanks to milder weather. I spent a few hours at the Joslyn revisiting plenty of old favorites. The Joslyn’s collection is made up primarily of North American and European works from 1285 to now, with a shiny new addition that opened about a year and a half ago that houses a collection of contemporary works. There is also a small collection of ancient artwork from the Cyclades, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Most of my favorites are from the medieval and early modern eras.
This painting by Maria van Oosterwyck reminded me of Victoria Redel’s excellent novel, I Am You, which I read last year.
Once I was done looking at the collection I headed downtown for lunch, then headed over to the used bookstore. Jackson Street Booksellers is the quintessential used bookshop stuffed to the gills with books. It’s the kind of place where you can spend hours browsing and find so many interesting things. My time was somewhat limited, though, and I left with only two books: Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter and Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco, translated from the Italian by William Weaver.
What I’ve Read: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls is a sequel to The Curse of Chalion, which is one of my favorite books ever. It is about Ista dy Chalion, the dowager royina (think dowager queen) of Chalion. For years, Ista suffered under the effects of a curse that made everyone around believe that she was insane. Though she is free from the curse, no one realizes that she is clear-minded again. Now that three years have passed since the events of The Curse of Chalion, Ista believes she will actually go mad if her life doesn’t change soon. She determines that she will go on pilgrimage to get away from her suffocating family and attendants. When her travel plans are affected by local unrest, she comes to a castle where a noble family has been suffering from an unexpected and inexplicable tragedy. Though Ista does not want to get involved, she soon finds herself wound up in that tragedy’s consequences and discovers that, if she does not take action, those effects could have terrible consequences for all of Chalion. I love Lois McMaster Bujold’s books. Her characters are so immediately compelling that I get hooked within the first chapter and then I want to do nothing but read so I can find out what happens. It’s why I finished the sixteen book Vorkosigan saga in the span of two months several years ago. The worldbuilding is excellent, and Bujold manages to fill the pages of her books with this humane philosophy. Her main characters are thoughtful and able to reflect on their mistakes and grow into better people because of it. She’s not afraid to have middle-aged people as main characters, like Ista or Cazaril from The Curse of Chalion.
Black: The History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau is one of those odd little books that, once I hear about it, I want to read it. I had to get it via inter-library loan and it was worth the wait. According to the StoryGraph, Black is the second in a seven-book series detailing the history of various colors in Western European history and culture. Black is a potted history of the color black and doesn’t dive into immense detail, but it’s informative all the same and beautifully put together with plenty of color plates of art throughout the ages. Though I knew black was the color that many bankers, lawyers, and other men of business wore in the lade middle ages, I didn’t know how the process of dyeing cloth black proceeded through the time period, or that gray cloth was also hard to make and when a good dyeing process was developed, gray became a very fashionable color in the 1400s-1500s. The day after I read that section about fashionable gray clothing, I visited the Joslyn and noticed that in the alterpiece of ‘Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and Saint Ages’, St Catherine is wearing a gray gown to go with her extravagant sleeves and fancy red hat. Now I understand why the artist chose to clothe the saint in gray.
What I’ve Been Watching I’ve almost caught up with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, and I already miss it. The first season has ten episodes, and the final episode premiers this Thursday. I want more episodes because I love this show so much. Though I’ve enjoyed the other new Trek series I’ve watched (Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard), they’ve definitely had their ups and downs. Starfleet Academy‘s first couple of episodes were pretty okay, and it got stronger from there. The highlights for me have been episode five, ‘Series Acclimation Mil’ and episode eight, ‘The Life of the Stars’ which are so beautifully written and acted, and dig deep into the ideas of humanity and unity that Star Trek set out to explore back in the 1960s. I’ve been loving how these young people who are driven to be the best also have no idea who they truly want to be as grown-up individuals. They’re smart and capable, but they’re also kids who screw up and make bad decisions. It’s been a pleasure to see their characters grow so much, even in this one season, and I’ve appreciated how they have incorporated certain elements of older series, as in episode five, which had SAM setting out to solve the mysterious fate of Benjamin Sisko (the commanding officer from Deep Space Nine). I know a lot of people have written the series off because of things like, “these kids are supposed to be the best of the best and they do the stupidest things”, but I saw some of the brightest kids at my university pull some of the most bone-headed maneuvers, so I fully understand why the Starfleet Academy kids make the mistakes they do. Other people are all “ew, there are queer people in this show, that’s not Star Trek”, to which I say, ‘how were you a Star Trek fan while also being a close-minded git?’ and also, ‘Grow up. Diversity is wonderful, and you’d be happier and less scared of the world if you let other ways of being into your life’. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
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Sunday, 8 March 2026
Recently Read #6
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Rex Sikes posted: " Take this quote of William Atkinson Walker's to heart. Understand it and apply it in your life. ...
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