Welcome to Litsy!

Kurin has two objectives: One is to trace the history of the gem, from its acquisition by Tavernier (I‘m related to him which is partly why I read the book) through its time in royal French and British circles to its transfer to the United States and its gifting to the Smithsonian. The second objective is to dispel the claims of a curse affecting the Hope‘s owners and explore the story of how the the curse claim evolved over the 20th century.

#ArtfulAugust Day 1: This one definitely #IncludesAMap. I don‘t know if it is because the protagonist is a young science genius and brilliant mapmaker that made me appreciate the novel, despite its daunting thickness. I find myself naturally gravitating towards stories of outliers, particularly those in the farthest-high-end of the bell curve. My review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-7rA

Weekend trip that has been filled with good food and museums! I managed to find a kindred spirit at the National Art Museum. #washingtondc #smithsonian

Great children‘s book about the creation of the African American history museum!

I love that I figured out my library loans out coffee table books. This is a painting of my Ohio River, no wonder I was drawn to it! ☺️

This came in today! It‘s fantastic! #History #Smithsonian Did you know that it was James K. Polk who legislated the Smithsonian?

Great children‘s book about how to build a African American museum!

DNF
Reads better than a straight-up text book. *But* it's hard to for me to fully embrace this when the author falls into the old-white-expert category. The introduction is written by an indigenous person explaining even though that the author is a white-guy, he really is a good-white-guy. Next time, I'll seek out an indigenious author. I might keep this now that I'm homeschooling. The illustrations and photos are valuable.

Home from a short trip to DC to visit with California family who were in the area for a few days. We did a night tour of the monuments and visited the African American History Museum for the first time (and bought the guidebook). I waved at the Supreme Court when we passed it in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I also got some good reading time on the train.

#7days7covers