This, the week of the US election, is a good moment to look at the books we publish by American authors which are set in different parts of the country. Emmeline was written in 1980 but is about the hardscrabble life of the mill girls - some as young as 13 - in the 1840s in Lowell, Massachusetts. (They had earlier made history when they went on strike in 1834 and created the first union of working women in America.)

The exhibition is a chance to see the marvellous and only recently rediscovered 'Famous Women Dinner Service' (1932-34, Charleston) which Vanessa Bell created with Duncan Grant (the sole man in the 52-piece set). The commission for a fine dining set came from Kenneth and Jane Clark, but instead they received this service which is a a brilliant celebration of women of strong and often unconventional character. Well worth a trip to Milton Keynes.

One of Vanessa Bell's great achievements was to make domesticity a worthy and valuable subject for painting. Of course, she didn't just paint her homes, she also filled them with decorated furniture, textiles, and ceramics. The catalogue calls her style 'domestic modernism', something which can be seen in her designs for rugs, cushions, and chair covers. There are several of these in the exhibition, including this 1924 needlepoint stitched by Ethel Grant, Duncan Grant's mother. 

The exhibition makes abundantly clear just how willing Vanessa Bell was to experiment with different arts and crafts, and how skilled she was with many materials and media. In Portrait of Molly MacCarthy (1914-15, private collection) she makes a 'radical departure' and plays with Cubism and collage, inspired by a visit to Picasso's studio in 1914. This is very similar to the Portrait of Molly MacCarthy (1912), an oil painting which is also in the exhibition; the pair are a  good illustration of Vanessa Bell's artistic and stylistic open-mindedness.  

The MK Gallery exhibition puts Vanessa Bell firmly centre stage, and for once she is not presented in terms of her relationships with other members of the Bloomsbury group. Although the connections are inescapable, in this show they are in the background rather like Duncan Grant's Painted Omega Screen (1913) in Interior, 8 Fitzroy Street (1935, Royal West of England Academy).

The Vanessa Bell exhibition at MK Gallery has just opened. It is the largest overview to date of her work, and includes paintings, drawings, decorated furniture, needlepoint, and ceramics in a colourful, vibrant, and thoughtful display. There are also several works that are rarely, if ever, shown, such as Nursery Tea (c1912, private collection). This shows two nursemaids with her  sons, Julian and Quentin, the latter 'with his orange hair [and] bright pink dress".

Margaret Calvert (b1936) working with Jock Kinneir (1917-94) transformed the previously haphazard state of British road signs in the late 1950s by creating a system and typeface which became the role model for modern road signage all over the world (this example is from 1958). As Margaret Howell says, their signs "are so familiar that no one notices how clever they really are. They convey important information quickly, unambiguously and without distraction to motorists travelling at speed...They look as good today as they did 50 years ago and have made motorway travelling safer and easier for millions".