Recent Reads from Mandy and Gordy

Lessons in chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except one: Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel Prize-nominated grudge holder who falls in love with -- of all things -- her mind. True chemistry results. Like science, though, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother but also the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ('combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride') proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because, as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo.

From Mandy: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was a delightfully unexpected read.  So good, I inhaled it in two sittings (a book too good to put down).  Highly entertaining, surprising, inspiring and a call to action that will resonate with every woman.   A book that provides courage to do what we are chemically designed to do!

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Miss Dior : a story of courage and couture

by Justine Picardie

Miss Dior is a story of freedom and fascism, beauty and betrayal, roses and repression, and how the polished surface of fashion conceals hidden depths. It paints a portrait of the enigmatic woman behind the designer Christian Dior: his beloved younger sister Catherine, who inspired his most famous perfume and shaped his vision of femininity. Justine Picardie's journey takes her to Occupied Paris, where Christian honed his couture skills while Catherine dedicated herself to the French Resistance, until she was captured by the Gestapo and deported to the German concentration camp of Ravensbrück. With access to the Dior family homes and archives, Picardie's research into Catherine's courageous life shines a new light on Christian Dior's legendary work, and reveals how his enchanting 'New Look' emerged out of the shadows of his sister's suffering. Tracing the wartime paths of the Dior siblings leads Picardie deep into other hidden histories, and different forms of resistance and sisterhood. She explores what it means to believe in beauty and hope, despite our knowledge of darkness and despair, and discovers the timeless solace of the natural world in the aftermath of devastation and destruction.

From Gordy:  Inventive and captivating, and shaped by Picardie’s own journey, Miss Dior examines the legacy of Christian Dior, the secrets of postwar France, and the unbreakable bond between two remarkable siblings.

Most important, it shines overdue recognition on a previously overlooked life, one that epitomized courage and also embodied the astonishing capacity of the human spirit to remain undimmed, even in the darkest circumstances. 

One woman informed Dior’s vision more than any other: his sister, Catherine, a Resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor, and cultivator of rose gardens who inspired Dior’s most beloved fragrance, Miss Dior. Yet the story of Catherine’s remarkable life—so different from her famous brother’s—has never been told, until now.

Drawing on the Dior archives and extensive research, Justine Picardie’s Miss Dior is the long-overdue restoration of Catherine Dior’s life. The siblings’ stories are profoundly intertwined: in Occupied France, as Christian honed his couture skills, Catherine dedicated herself to the Resistance, ultimately being captured by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbruck, the only Nazi camp solely for women. Seeking to trace Catherine’s story as well as her influence on her brother, Picardie travelled to the significant places of Catherine’s life.

A time in history that still continues to astound and confound me and how the role of  beauty has helped towards healing after times of unimaginable but all too real suffering.  Highly recommended.

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