A warm and lovely read on a snowy day is Terry Conway’s Newsworks.org review of  W. Barksdale Maynard’s new book: “Brandywine: An Intimate Portrait.”

Conway calls the book a “sweeping narrative which brings to life the legendary men and women who shaped the Brandywine’s history and industry, and its arts and culture.”

Maynard’s book, Conway writes, begins with the Lenape Indians and original European settlement, follows the Battle of the Brandywine, and chronicles French émigré Eleuthére Irenée duPont de Nemours as he established black powder mills at what is today Hagley Museum.

“…it is in the nuances, the telling details and subtle shadings where Maynard excels,” Conway writes. “Take those Brandywine mills. They operated day and night and often ran all by themselves.  Maynard calls them the equivalent of today’s technological marvels, smartphones and tablets.”

The book, with rare historical photographs, paintings, and drawings, retails for $27 on Amazon.com and may be borrowed through the Chester County Library.

Conway is a writer who also lectures on art history at John Hopkins and Princeton universities.