Elizabeth Strout was born in Portland, Maine, and grew up in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire.  From a young age she was drawn to writing things down, keeping notebooks that recorded the details of her days.  She was also drawn to books, and spent hours of her youth in the local library lingering among the stacks of fiction.  During the summer months of her childhood she played outdoors, either with her brother, or, more often, alone, and this is where she developed her deep and abiding love of the physical world:  the seaweed covered rocks along the coast of Maine, and the woods of New Hampshire with its hidden wildflowers.  During her adolescent years, Strout continued writing avidly, having conceived of herself as a writer from early on.  She read biographies of writers, and was already studying--on her own--the way American writers, in particular, told their stories.  Poetry was something she read and memorized; by the age of sixteen was sending out stories to magazines.  Her first story was published when she was twenty-six.  https://www.elizabethstrout.com/about 

'At one fell swoop' is one of those phrases that we may have picked up early in our learning of the language and probably worked out its meaning from the context in which we heard it, without any clear understanding of what each word meant.  We use the word fell in a variety of ways:  to chop, as in fell a tree; a moorland or mountain, like those in the northern UK; the past tense of fall, as in 'he fell over'.  None of those seems to make sense in this phrase and indeed the 'fell' here is none of those.  It's an old word, in use by the 13th century, that's now fallen out of use other than in this phrase, and is the common root of the term 'felon'.  The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'fell' as meaning 'fierce, savage; cruel, ruthless; dreadful, terrible', which is pretty unambiguous.  Shakespeare either coined the phrase, or gave it circulation, in Macbeth, 1605.  https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/at-one-fell-swoop.html 

McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s.  This period is also referred to as the Second Red Scare, and coincided with increased fears about communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents.  Originally coined to criticize the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" later took on a more general meaning, not necessarily referring to the conduct of Joseph McCarthy alone.  https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/McCarthyism 

Easy Parmesan Risotto courtesy of Ina Garten  serves 4-6  Bake in oven rather than stirring on your stovetop.  https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/easy-parmesan-risotto-recipe-2172312  Thank you, Muse reader!  

Joyeux Noël (''Merry Christmas'') is a 2005 epic war drama film based on the Christmas truce of December 1914, depicted through the eyes of French, Scottish, and German soldiers.  It was written and directed by Christian Carion, and screened out of competition at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. The film, which includes one of the last appearances of Ian Richardson before his death, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards.  It is a fictionalised account of an actual event that took place in December 1914, when Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, sent the lead singer of the Berlin Imperial Opera company on a solo visit to the front line.  Singing by the tenor, Walter Kirchhoff, to the 120th and 124th Württemberg regiments led French soldiers in their trenches to stand up and applaud.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl  Thank you, Muse reader! 

The Last of Sheila is a 1973 American neo noir mystery film directed by Herbert Ross and written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim.  It starred Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, James Coburn, Joan Hackett, James Mason, Ian McShane, and Raquel Welch.  The film was released to positive reviews, and has garnered a cult following over time.  Rian Johnson credited the film as an inspiration for Knives Out.  Perkins and Sondheim's script was later novelized by Alexander Edwards.  The original music score was composed by Billy Goldenberg.  The song "Friends", sung by Bette Midler, can be heard during the final scene of the film and the end credits.  Perkins and Sondheim won the 1974 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture from the Mystery Writers of America.  They went on to try to collaborate together again two more times, on The Chorus Girl Murder Case and Crime and Variations, but the projects were ultimately unrealized.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_Sheila 

Complete National Film Registry Listing starting with the 2021 titles announced by the Library of Congress  Sort films by title, year of release, and year inducted into the Registry by using the up and down arrows at the top of each column.  Brief descriptions and expanded essays are available for many Registry titles.  https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/

Tax preparation company H&R Block Inc on December 16, 2021 sued payment company Block Inc, previously called Square Inc, saying the new name infringed its trademarks.  Block's chief executive, Twitter Inc co-founder Jack Dorsey, announced the name change earlier this month as the company looked to expand beyond its payment service into new areas, including blockchain.  In a complaint filed in Kansas City, Missouri, federal court, however, H&R Block accused the company of "stealing Block's name in order to co-opt the reputation and goodwill that Block has earned through decades of hard work.   Brendan Pierson  https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/h-r-block-sues-block-161808092.html 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2470  December 17, 2021