8 Books I've Read and Recommend For ....

New Series:  Books I Recommend For....

THE MAN IN YOUR LIFE

These are all books I have read and would recommend.  

My Husband and I have been reading one book a month together for about a year.  These are all books that we have read together and enjoyed enough to recommend.  **The only book we disagree on is Ready Player One.  I liked it 👍 he didn't👎.  

Anxiously awaiting the movie coming soon!

1.  Lincoln in the Bardo - very different writing style, historical fiction, great on audio!

2.  Beartown - not just for hockey lovers, weaves many characters manageably, has a sequel

3.  The Martian - suspenceful, main character you can root for, space/science themed

4.  Ready Player One - futuristic, zero to hero, peppered with 80's video game nostalgia

5.  Peace Like A River - sticking together, evading the law, midwestern feel

6.  Before the Fall - mystery, plane crash, survivors?

7.  Station Eleven - dystopian, relationships, survival of the fittest 

8.  The Road - dark, end of the world, father/son

Recent Sea Glass Finds 2018

Show Us Your Books (SUYB) January 2018

                                        

      It's My Favorite Tuesday of the Month

Another Round of Show Us Your Books!!

January 2018

Show Us Your Books - January 2018

These are the books I read in January

Favorites this Month:  Brain on Fire, The Sea of Tranquility

Interesting Find (Newport/Pottery)

I was lucky enough to come upon this interesting sea pottery piece late in January 2018.  My husband and I were driving around Newport RI.  I asked him to stop at the Castle Hill Inn Beach so I could take a photo.  It is winter so there is some access to private beaches.  I walked the short beach and picked up a few pieces of sea glass and pottery.  I took a few photos and turned to head back to the car.  My eye caught a piece on the ground with the word "NASSAU".  It was cold so I picked up the piece to check it out later.  

My husband and I began to search for the history of this piece.  We were able to find out that the clay jug originated from Niederselter, Herzogthum Nassau (Province) Germany and held mineral water dating back to at least 1787.   Jug-making was a cottage industry in the Westerwald area where families in at least nine villages manufactured the Selters bottles. Identification on the front of the bottles, such as Herzogthum Nassau (literally Dutchy of Nassau) identify the political territory of the local nobility or councils that licensed the exportation of the water. Because of the competition from glass containers, the jug trade declined by the end of the 19th century and was reduced to 49 jugmakers by 1926. 

If you would like to read more about the history of mineral water at Niederselters and see pictures of other bottles check out below:

History of Selter Water
History of Niederselter (Wikipedia)
Photo of similar bottle on ebay

History of Castle Hill Inn (from their website)

As Newport began to grow into a prominent seaport, the wealthy built great architectural tributes to the life of leisure: splendid, multiple-roomed mansions called “cottages.” Castle Hill was a gracious, shingle-style song of a house commissioned in 1874 by marine biologist and naturalist Alexander Agassiz of Harvard University. Today’s inn was his original summer home, where he kept his eye on the ocean and the sea life within it. He filled his house with the best of Chinese and Japanese art and furnishings, especially bronzes and porcelain, many of which are still present in the house. 

How did this piece end up on a beach in front of the Castle Hill Inn?  Is it possible that Agassiz had Selters Water sent to his home in Newport, RI one summer in the late 1800's???  Or after World War II when Castle Hill Inn officially became a hotel that the water was commissioned to serve as a beverage for the guests of the Inn and spa?

We will never know but it was definitely interesting researching the history of this piece.

By the way, here is the photo I took that day.