November 30 - Life in a French Country House: Entertaining for All Seasons, by Cordelia de Castellane (2021)
Shop now at Amazon.com (affiliate link):
https://amzn.to/48uMzA1

This book contains tips and inspiration for elegant entertaining at home. It’s arranged by season, and teaches us to entertain beautifully in the French manner. Besides recipes, she shares tips on table setting, flower arranging, and interior design. There’s a section on Easter, a section on fall decor, and two sections on Christmas food and entertaining. Throughout the book there are tantalizing photographs of a French country house and the countryside, which will help cheer me up on gray rainy days as I’m reading this coffee table book/cookbook.

We’ll have another lovely book recommendation for you in tomorrow morning’s podcast as we begin our December, winter, holiday and Christmas book suggestions!

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Lovely Living:
https://www.lovely-living.com/

Lovely Living University:
https://www.lovelylivinguniversity.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lovelylivinguniversity

November 29 - White Truffles in Winter, by N. M. Kelby (2011)
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https://amzn.to/3YRCM3X

This novel imagines the world of the famous French chef Auguste Escoffier, who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy (London) and the Ritz (Paris) His wife, Delphine, was a poet who refused to leave her home in Monte Carlo, and he went on to have an affair with one of the most famous women in the world at the time, the actress Sarah Bernhardt. On her deathbed, his wife asked him to create and name a dish after her like he did for Queen Victoria and others. The food descriptions are fantastic, but some readers have complained that the characters weren’t well developed and the book jumps around in time and the timeline is hard to follow.. Food is mentioned on almost every page.

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Lovely Living:
https://www.lovely-living.com/

Lovely Living University:
https://www.lovelylivinguniversity.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lovelylivinguniversity

November 28 – The Women in Black, by Madeline St. John (2020)
Shop now at Amazon.com (affiliate link):
https://amzn.to/4hp8AEs

Here’s a cute and light story about the ladies that work in the “Ladies Cocktail Frocks” department at the FG Goode department store. They’re all expected to wear black dresses to work. Set in Sydney in the 1950s. They’re girding themselves for the Christmas rush. A Slovenian immigrant named Magda rules the “Model gowns” section, and takes a young woman, Lisa, under her wing. Lisa was raised very conservatively.

The other shop assistants don’t like Magda, jealous because she’s very good at selling expensive gowns to the wealthy Sydney socialites. Women are expected to work a couple of years, then marry and stay home with children. It starts off slow but you warm to the characters and it’s a light, slim read, perfect way to relax after a busy Thanksgiving weekend as we now begin getting ready for Christmas (as do the ladies in the book).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Lovely Living:
https://www.lovely-living.com/

Lovely Living University:
https://www.lovelylivinguniversity.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lovelylivinguniversity