Books about Clementine from Amazon.com

Clementine Churchill — shy, passionate, and high-strung — shunned publicity but was in the limelight throughout her adult life. As a young woman, her character, intelligence, and good looks won the attention of the impetuous Winston Churchill. Their courtship was swift, but their marriage proved immensely strong, spanning many of the major events of the twentieth century. Written with affection and candor by the Churchills' daughter Mary Soames, this revised and updated biography of a lionhearted couple's life together is not only of historic interest but deeply moving..
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For more than a dozen years before World War II, the Chamberlain family lived and learned to eat in the tiny cathedral town of Senlis, France. Their Burgundian cook, Clémentine, presided over their kitchen in France, and later in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The alert, good-natured cuisinère is the heroine of Clémentine in the Kitchen, first published in 1943 and happily reissued in the Modern Library Food series. The book is a gem: part gastronomic diary and part cookbook (over 170 recipes are included), it also evokes, perhaps most interestingly, Clémentine's affect on a small town in pre-"gourmet" America, and its influence on her.

From the moment of Clémentine's Senlis arrival with her eloquent notebooks (containing lists of superb everyday dishes such as omelette aux fines herbs and blanquette de veau), to her preparation of extraordinary family meals, to her struggle and then triumph with American ingredients and kitchen ways, the book details the deeply shared gastronomic life led by the tiny, resourceful cook. It's a life defined by dishes, and the book includes recipes for many of Clémentine's best, including Coquilles St. Jacques au Gratin (gratinéed scallops), Escargots de Bourgogne (snails in garlic butter), Poisson à la Niçoise (fish baked with tomatoes and olive oil), and Crème Renversée (caramel custard). The recipes have been adapted for modern use by Narcisse Chamberlain, the author's daughter. Illustrated with dry points, etchings, and drawings, readers will delight in this wry yet charming tale and enjoy poring over the authentic mid-20th-century French recipes. --Arthur Boehm.
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This sleek and serious anthology of new curatorial writing features contributions from leading international curators, artists and critics including Julie Ault, S0ren Andreasen & Lars Bang Larsen, Carlos Basualdo, Dave Beech & Mark Hutchinson, Irene Calderoni, Anshuman Das Gupta & Grant Watson, Clementine Deliss, Eva Diaz, Claire Doherty, Okwui Enwezor, Annie Fletcher, Liam Gillick, Jens Hoffmann, Robert Nickas, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Sarah Pierce, Simon Sheikh, Mary Anne Staniszewski, Andrew Wilson and Mick Wilson. Put together by the curator/critic Paul O'Neill, Curating Subjects, documents the inter-dependent relationships between the curatorial past, present and speculative futures and instead of following the convention of curators writing about themselves, invites the authors to provide a text about the curatorial work of others. The result is an eclectic volume of accessible responses that provides a pluralistic and dynamic curatorial discourse where critical essays, theoretical explorations, propositions, historical overviews, interviews, exhibition critiques and fictional accounts sit side by side. Essential reading for students and professionals alike..
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Born in northwest Louisiana in 1886. Called Tebé by her family, Hunter lived and worked on Melrose Plantation for more than 75 years. In colors as bright as the Louisiana sky, she shows the backbreaking work required to pick cotton, gather figs, cut sugar cane, and harvest pecans. Tebé's art portrays the good times, too. Scenes of baptisms, weddings, and church socials celebrate a rich community life that helped the workers survive. Hunter's work holds a special place in art history. She was the first self-taught artist to receive a fellowship from the Rosenwald Fund, in 1945, and the first self-taught African-American woman artist to receive national media attention. Between 1945 and 1987, over fifty museums and galleries showed her works. Some writers have called Clementine Hunter a creative genius. To others she was not a real artist but a "plantation Negro." Many were surprised that an older woman with no training could produce art at all. Now considered one of the finest folk arti.
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"I seize this fleeting hour of leisure to write and tell you how much I liked our long talk on Sunday," Winston Churchill wrote to Clementine Hozier in April 1908, shortly after their third meeting, "and what a comfort and pleasure it was to me to meet a girl with so much intellectual quality and such strong reserves of noble sentiment." They were married by September; he was 29, she 19. They would remain married--though, due to political circumstances, they were not always together--until his death in 1965. During that time, their daughter Mary Soames remarks, some 1,700 items of personal correspondence passed between the two. Winston and Clementine is far from a complete collection, but it does offer a comprehensive overview of their epistolary relationship and the deep love and mutual respect upon which their marriage was based. It may be somewhat disconcerting to see the man who stirred a nation to war with "blood, toil, tears, and sweat" and other memorable phrases sending "kisses to my sweet and beloved Clemmie cat," yet it also makes the imposing statesman seem more human.

Sometimes Clementine would send written messages to Winston even when they were together; it was an opportunity to gather her thoughts, or avoid taking up her husband's time with arguments when he was busy managing the war. In June 1940, for example, she told him that "there is a danger of your being generally disliked by your colleagues and subordinates because of your rough sarcastic and overbearing manner.... I cannot bear that those who serve the Country and yourself should not love you as well as admire and respect you." A few of the letters are accompanied by little cartoon animals that they would draw for each other: she always drew the posterior view of a sitting cat, while he would sketch pug dogs, and later pigs. Even toward the end, when they both had to deal with increased infirmity and tragedies among their children, they still found time to send "little love messages" to each other. Looking back at their marriage, with Soames's edifying commentary sprinkled throughout (as well as a quite well-done biographical dictionary), is an experience both revealing and touching..
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