WIP, TBR, & News

I have a head cold. My husband gave it to me for Valentine's Day. He felt bad so he bought me chocolate covered macaroons. 

It has been bitterly cold and snowy in Michigan.

painting by Joyce Gochenour, my mother

We have been enjoying the Detroit Symphony's American Panorama series and were lucky to have tickets to see two of the concerts live. I shared a remark on Facebook and was surprised to open their February newsletter to see it included at the top of the page!

POSTCARDS FROM THE STAGE

The DSO has made its mark in the month of February for the past several seasons with six extraordinary winter music festivals. Now halfway through American Panorama, it’s safe to say this festival has launched us on an incredible journey.

We watch the DSO concerts on Livestream, on our Comcast channel 900, plus they are available online. 

I am hand quilting the top I made from Carolyn Goins' book The Fiona Quilt Block.

The weekly quilt group I attend has a 'free table' where we share things we don't want. Fabric, patterns, books, trims--all kinds of goodies show up. The ladies are always showing off something they made with the free fabric they found on the table. A few weeks ago I picked up a piece of Marvel comic book heroes material and used it to make a bag.

 I lined it and added a deep pocket.

A surprise package came!  Fault Lines from W. W. Norton. The book shows how the American political divide began in 1974. This will be especially interesting to read as I am currently reading Camelot's End by Jon Ward about Ted Kennedy's challenge to President Carter, and how the Democratic party lost the presidency to Reagen.

I just finished The Gown by Jennifer Robson, a novel about the making of Princess Elizabeth's wedding gown. I won the book from Book Club Cookbook. My review is to come. Another book arrival, a Goodreads win, is That Churchill Woman by Stephanie Barron, whose Jane Austen mysteries I have enjoyed.

I am still waiting for my Goodreads win Unmarriageable, a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, and the LibraryThing win Falter by Bill McKibbon.

For Valentines Day I bought myself Elizabeth McCracken's new novel Bowlaway. I just loved what I was reading in the reviews.

We bought a heated outdoor dog water bowl after watching squirrels eating ice. Once in a while, a bird will visit for a drink, too. But this little black squirrel comes all day long. He is the same critter who robbed our apple trees all summer long! We didn't mind, as the fruit last year was affected by the drought and was too small to use.

Our son's rescue dog Ellie has made huge progress in the last ten weeks. She sits to be harnessed and to get her coat on. She lets him know when she wants out or in or a pet. Ellie loves to romp in the deep snow!

I am scheduled for cataract surgery next week but fear it won't happen unless I have a quick and complete recovery from my cold! I will have both eyes taken care of and will get a lens that corrects my astigmatism while I am at it. Hopefully, I will only need glasses to read!

Knowing there were be several weeks when I won't have the best vision I have been cleaning up my NetGalley shelf and resisting adding new books until my surgeries are over.

I am reading Stephen Rowley's The Editor, historical fiction about a writer whose editor was Jackie Kennedy Onassis.

Books on my shelf include:

• The Life and Death of Aida: A Border Story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
• A Good American Family: The Red Scare and My Father by David Maraniss whose Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story I have read
• The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith whose The Last Painting of Sara DeVos I have read

There are a few other publisher-sent NetGalley books which I may also get to. 

Today a dozen fat Robins visited the yard! They settled in the little ornamental pear tree to pluck the small fruit from last year. Then off they flew. Spring will come!

Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert

Alan Brennert's novel 2003 Moloka'i has a huge fan base and is much beloved among historical fiction readers. Now he continues the story in Daughter of Moloka'i.

In the first novel, we meet Rachel in the Hawaiian leper colony, her infant Ruth placed in a Catholic orphanage to protect her from developing her parent's leprosy. In this new novel, Brennert continues Ruth story as she is adopted by a Japanese couple. They move to California where they come up against anti-Japanese sentiment. The family is caught up in the horror of relocation camps during WWII, suffering a division when a loyalty oath compels the patriarch to make a choice that leads to repatriation. Ruth's story is continued as the family struggles to regain what they have lost. And in the end, Ruth is reunited with her birth mother and learns her heritage. Readers will learn a lot about Hawaiian and Japanese culture and religion.

Brennert does not shy from including gruesome stories of racist injustice, scenes that are far more disturbing than those shared in other recent novels about Manzanar which I have read. 

Years ago I read Brennert's novel Honolulu and enjoyed it. I already had Moloka'i on my Kindle and intended to read it before Daughter of Moloka'i but ended up reading only about half of it. Consequently, my emotional involvement in the reunion at the end of the novel was weaker.

Overall, my response to both novels was lacking. I don't know if I was just burned out by too much historical fiction, especially about these events, or if I was burned out by family sagas, or if the prose just didn't work for me. The events covered are certainly intense and relevant. But I didn't really *get into* the characters and often felt there was too much telling and not enough action. Scenes I wished were acted out were only referred to, and other scenes took up too much space.

But that's me, and I am often out of sync with mainstream readers. Because people love these novels and characters.

I can't find fault with Brennert's commitment to using fiction to broaden reader's knowledge of history and the ways the American government has grievously erred--and still errors-- practicing racism that employs unjust and cruel laws. So, kudos to Brennert! And may readers everywhere love these characters and pledge that America's past moral failing not continue to be perpetrated in the future.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

You can read an excerpt at 

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250137685

Daughter of Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

St. Martin's Press

Pub Date 19 Feb 2019  

ISBN 9781250137661

PRICE $27.99 (USD)

Meet Mrs. L. Frank Baum in Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts

Finding Dorothy by Elizabeth Letts is a charming imagining of the life of Mrs. Frank L. Baum. 

In 1938 a seventy-seven-year-old Maud Baum pushes her way into MGM studios to fulfill her promise to her husband to always protect Dorothy. She isn't taken seriously, but nonplussed, continues to show up during the production of The Wizard of Oz to protect her husband's creation, so believed by children. She notices the appalling treatment endured by teenage actress Judy Garland and befriends the girl. 

Maud Gage was the daughter of a well-connected suffragette who expected her to earn a college degree. Being a coed was hard enough in 1880; being the daughter of a notorious activist brought further harassment. 

Visiting her college roommate's family she meets L. Frank Baum. He wins her heart--and her parent's approval, even though he was self-educated and ran a traveling troupe that performed his plays across the country. 

Their life is filled with hardship and challenges, love and loss, taking them from New York State to touring the country, to the upper plains to Chicago, until Frank finally sets down on paper the stories he loves to tell.

Letts' story is based on actual events and persons. Some of the most amazing events in the novel actually happened.

As a girl in the 1950s, I was always so excited when The Wizard of Oz movie was aired on television. I was an adult before I saw it in color! I discovered very old copies of the Oz series in my elementary school library and read most of the books.

I enjoyed Finding Dorothy and I think you will, too. It was wonderful to learn about the "man behind the curtain" who imagined the Oz stories, and the strong woman he married. Judy Garland's experience of abuse mirror stories we still hear today. 

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

"A woman with a heart, a brain, courage to spare, and a girl’s sense of wonder—this is the heroine of Elizabeth Letts’s sparkling, touching. Maud Baum is the daughter of a suffragette and the wife of a dreamer, but she is also a force to be reckoned with in her own right.”—Melanie Benjamin, author of The Swans of Fifth Avenue

Letts' nonfiction books The Eighty-Dollar Champion, which I have read and enjoyed, and The Perfect Horse, which I should have read, have been best-sellers.  

Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine

Pub Date 12 Feb 2019  

ISBN 9780525622109

PRICE $28.00 (USD)

The Last Whalers: Three Years with an Indigenous Culture in a Changing World

One family, one heart, one action, one goal. Lamaleran saying

Lembata, in Southeast Asia, is home to the Lamalerans who arrived there 500 years ago. They settled on the beach under a cliff, surviving by fishing for sperm whale and Manta ray and flying fish. Those who are successful in the hunt share with aging family members and community members. They are one of the few hunter-gatherer societies left in the world. But industrialized society is crowding in on them. Their children are enticed to the cities for education and jobs. Some remain for the air conditioning and running water. Outboard motors and smaller boats are replacing the handcrafted boats propelled by oar and the young carry cell phones.

In the middle of the typhoon is life--Lamaleran song

The songs were more than music—they were prayers. from The Last Whalers

Over three years, Clark spent a year living with the Lamalerans, participating as a community member, even eating manta ray brains.

The whalers risk their lives to kill the whales by jumping off their boats and using their body weight to drive long-handled spears deep into the animals. The ropes attached to the spears can entangle a man. The whales fight back, overturning the boats. It is all quite horrendous and brutal. But without the whale meat, the people starve. The dried meat get them through the hunger months. They trade the dried meat for rice and vegetables with the people at the top of the hill who are farmers.

The Last Whalers is marvelous because readers come to know these people intimately. A young man dreams of becoming a harpooner, the most honored position in their society, yet also dreams of life in the city. A young woman receives an education but committed to care for her elders must return to the village. The elders must preserve the old ways and knowledge while accepting that change is inevitable. To leave the village is to also leave the unity of one family, one heart, one action, one goal. It is hard to walk away from the strength of community to live in isolation with only yourself to depend upon.

Clark respects their traditions and way of life, noting that we should honor all cultures and be able to take the best each has to offer, learning from each other, cultural diversity perhaps essential to the survival of humanity.

The Lamalerans’ experience, then, speaks not just to the danger faced by earth’s remaining indigenous peoples but to the greater cultural extinction humanity is suffering. from The Last Whalers

Preserving the old ways and values in a changing world--it is what we all are dealing with, the universal challenge.

Read an excerpt and learn more about the book at https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/doug-bock-clark/the-last-whalers/9780316390637/

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

About the author: 
Doug Bock Clark is a writer whose articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, GQ, Wired, Rolling Stone, The New Republic, and elsewhere. He won the 2017 Reporting Award, was a finalist for the 2016 Mirror Award, and has been awarded two Fulbright Fellowships, a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and an 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship. Clark has been interviewed about his work on CNN, BBC, NPR, and ABC’s 20/20. He is a Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life
by Doug Bock Clark
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 08 Jan 2019 
ISBN 9780316390620
PRICE $30.00 (USD)

Helen Korngold Diary: February 10-16, 1919

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

This year I am sharing the 1919 diary of Helen Korngold of St. Louis, MO.

February

Monday 10
Wellston. Rotten lesson. Class. Munillo [?] sitting. Home. Answers to all my questions with long newspaper clippings & a letter from Ruth. She’s so clever. Beautiful folder from J. Koloditsky of Ashville, N.C.

Tuesday 11
Wellston—good lesson. Class. Practiced basket ball. Home—beautiful cards & a letter from J.K. Lecture—Joe Raskas & Summer came up. Home to bed.

Wednesday 12
Wellston—good lesson. Class. Practice Basket Ball. Pledged to Pi Omicron Pi—blue & pink. I don’t know what it is. Home.  Fair proofs from Munillo. Study.

Thursday 13
Wellston—Wells came out—he said I made a successful teacher, said I understood children. I should worry. Class—Dr. Usher said I did well in class work. Teased Pauline. Home—wrote a playlet for Junior Council.

Friday 14
Wellston—Valentines from kids. Class—started Macbeth in Dr. Mackenzie’s class. Hear Max Rosen play violin at symphony concert. Aunt Beryl & I met him. He’s a sweet chap—lovely character—blue eyes—pink cheeks & plays to sweetly—has a finished style & is very musical. Met Gussikoff—don’t like him.

Saturday 15
Class—Dr. McCourt absent. Junior Council Board meeting 2:30-6 p.m. Had a delightful time with the girls & Mrs. Halpern. Home.

Sunday 16
Helped all morning. At 11:30 Ellenburg called up. I thought he was squelched. He’s too much for me. I insisted that I won’t see him. At 2 PM I got a box of candy from him. Will have to return it this evening by Charles. Gee, its such good stuff, but I can’t keep it.

*****

Notes:

February 12

Pi Omicron was a national educational sorority.

February 14

Helen heard an all Tschaikowsky program at the Odeon including the Pathetique. The St. Louis Dispatch critic called Rosen a 'good looking, wholesome' boy able to 'play the notes' without much interpretation.

Max Rosen was born in Romania and came to the United States as a child. His father was a Rumanian Army bandmaster who gave him a violin when a child. Max was discovered by a social worker while at the Music Settlement School and found him patrons for his education.  He studied abroad until 1917 and played Carnegie Hall in 1918 and returned in 1919. 

Max Rosen

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft838nb58v;chunk.id=d0e9408;doc.view=print) 

Music News Article on the concert: Max Rosen is still another wonder child is a rosy-cheeked bright-eyed boy of 19. There is no question as to his maturity as artist. Not only did he perform all the difficulties terrific concerto presents with ease and aplomb but he showed in every phrase that he what he was about from a musical standpoint. His tone is clear and penetrating with a scratch even in the most strenuous. The audience raved over him. He scored and with good reason. The boy is virtuoso right and will make a place for St Louis Times Symphony Concert BY WEGMAN Critic of The St Louis Times. 

1918 Opera News article: MAX ROSEN ARRIVES FROM EUROPE OTHER MUSICAL ITEMS ARRIVING in New York from Christiania on the day after Christmas. Max Rosen the newest young violin genius to come from the great Professor Auer is making his first visit to his native land since his departure for Europe five years ago. In that period this remarkable boy, who is now only 17 years old, and who went to Europe as a student, has become one of the most famous violinists of the present day winning the most extravagant praise from all the European critics. His American debut which will take place with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Saturday evening, January 12, has already aroused intense interest and will be notable for the fact that an absolute exception is made to the general rules of having a soloist play but once on the program. Mr Rosen is being accorded the unusual distinction of not only playing the Goldmark concerto with orchestra but will also be heard in a group of pieces for violin and piano as well. 

Michel Guskioff

Michel Gusikoff (born in 1893) was a violinist who became Concertmaster of the St Louis Symphony under Max Zach. In 1925 he left to become Concertmaster of the Philadelphia Orchestra, joining his brothers Benjamin, Charles, and Isadore who were all orchestra musicians. He did not find favor with Stokowski and left the following year for the New York Symphony. 

Here he performs To A Wild Rose: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaSMprIdngw

Here is a link for information on the Gusikoff brother's careers with the Philadelphia Orchestra: http://www.stokowski.org/Philadelphia_Orchestra_Musicians_List.htm#G

Here is an article where Gusikoff stood in for an ailing Fritz Reiner as director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1129&dat=19390204&id=_7hRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=f2kDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2335,2731599

The Cassandra by Sharma Shields

Sharma Shield's novel The Cassandra was a very dark read. The protagonist Mildred Groves' gift of prophecy alienates her from her family and the larger society. She struggles with a desire to fit in while visions reveal horrifying inevitabilities and men's true natures.

Mildred ceases the chance to escape her suffocating home and needy mother, thrilled to find work at a WWII government research facility in a remote part of Washington on the Columbia River. The "project" will shorten the war, she is told. Mildred becomes an esteemed worker, makes her first best friend, and even gains an admirer. She revels in the freedom.

But night finds her sleepwalking and experiencing gruesome dreams of the project's dire consequences for humanity.

Shields vividly describes the historical Hanford Project research facility, part of the Manhatten Project--the wind and dust, the subjugation of minorities and women, the ignorance of the workers and the willingness of the researchers to risk environmental degradation to win the arms race.

Mildred's abuse and violent acts in response to her inability to change events around her are disturbing. More disturbing is humanity's blind determination in believing that the ultimate weapon will save the world.

I received a free book from the publisher through LibraryThing.

The Cassandra
Shama Shields
Henry Holt and Co.
Publication 02/12/2019
$28 hardcover
ISBN: 9781250197412

Nothing But the Night by John Wiliams

Arthur Maxley wakes in his room, which he thinks is like his soul--dirty and disarranged. Shrugging off that thought, he slaps cold water on his face and determines to go for a walk. But he never gets to his destination, sidetracked to a cafe. His egg makes him think of an evil eye and depressed by the little cafe and ends up back home, the windows in his building seeming to leer at him. Maxley's nerves are disturbed by memories. Everything he encounters is magnified in grotesque ways, like circus sideshow mirrors, reflecting his inner world.

Every word in John Williams' novel Nothing Like the Night reveals Maxley's claustrophobic and overwrought psyche, the story culminating in the revelation of the horror Maxley witnessed and his irrational acting out of his trauma.

Is this book by the same man who created William Stoner in Stoner, the novel so constrained and elegant, austere and yet moving? Both novels are dark, but Stoner's resolution is comforting in his final acceptance of his life. Night leaves the protagonist still lost in the dark. Violence becomes his speech and there is no health in him.

Nothing But the Night was Williams' first novel, written during the war when he flew supplies "over the hump" and saw his fellow soldiers die. Only a mentor with a small press believed in him enough to publish this novel. Williams learned from his mistakes and went on to write "the perfect novel" Stoner and the National Book Award winner Augustus.

It was fascinating to read this early novel, at once a failure and yet showing Williams ability with words and insight into human nature. The story is disturbing and memorable, a psychological noir more suited for 2018 than 1948.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

from the publisher:

Stoner author John Williams’s first novel is a searing look at a man’s relationship with his absent father, and how early trauma manifests throughout one’s life

John Williams’s first novel is a brooding psychological noir. Arthur Maxley is a young man at the end of his emotional rope. Having dropped out of college, he’s holed up in a big-city hotel, living off an allowance from his family, feeling nothing but alone and doing nothing but drinking to forget it. What’s brought him to this point? Something is troubling him, something is haunting him, something he cannot bring himself either to face or to turn away from. And now his father has come to town, a hail-fellow-well-met kind of guy. They’ve been estranged for years, and yet Arthur wants to meet—and so he does, reeling away from the encounter for a night of drinking and dancing and a final reckoning with the traumatizing past that readers will not soon forget.

Nothing But the Night includes an interview with Nancy Williams, John Williams’s widow.

Publication History: 1st pub 1948; OP since 1990

Nothing But the Night
by John Williams
NYRB Classics
On Sale Date: February 12, 2019
9781681373072, 1681373076
$14.95 USD, $19.95 CAD

Learn more about John Williams--

My review of The Man Who Wrote the Perfect Novel by Charles J. Shields can be found at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-man-who-wrote-perfect-novel-john.html

Read my review of Stoner by John Williams at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/02/favorite-new-classics-stoner-by-john.html

Read my review of Augustus by John Williams at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/03/pax-romana-and-ephemeral-power-augustus.html

Helen Korngold Diary: February 3 - 9, 1919

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

February, 1919

Monday 3
Wellston—Class. Made 2nd Basket Ball team. That’s pretty good. All the other girls have been playing for 4 years. I just started. Home—practiced.

Tuesday 4
Wellston. Class as usually. Nothing startling. Lecture—Dr. Hudson of Mizzoo [Missouri State University] a philosopher & a good one too.

Wednesday 5
Wellston—class—Practiced basket ball. Letter from papa. Home.

Thursday 6
Wellston—Class. Luncheon & a senior party in the evening. We had one swell time. Came home with Willis Bliss, nephew to General Bliss who is sitting in the Peace Conference. Home at 12 bells.

Friday 7
Wellston—Class-Dancing—it’s so refreshing.

Saturday 8
Class. Dr. McCourt certainly does quiz one. Dr. Usher was so sweet today. Downtown—Party is off. I’m not sorry.

Sunday 9
Fooled around—studied & took a lesson. I’ve been good this week. Special delivery letter from J. Koloditsky. He’s discharged. I haven’t even answered his last letters. Papa came home. I’m thrilled to death! Ruth thinks I’m a fool but Arthur doesn’t - Why worry.

*****

Notes:

February 4

Dr. Nellie Hudson taught education at Missouri State University (Mizzoo)

Dr. Nellie Hudson

http://semo.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/Sagamores/id/1829

February 6

Wyllis King Bliss was in the 1916 Washington University Freshman class. He was born in St. Louis and later studied at the University of Illinois. He graduated from Washington University in 1920 with a B.S. in Commerce. His WWI draft registration shows he was of medium height, slightly built, with blue eyes.

Wyllis was the son of Malcolm Andrews Bliss (1863-1934), an important physician specializing in mental health who campaigned for zoning laws to restrict congested slum neighborhoods, the noise and crowding of which he saw as destructive to St. Louisan's nervous systems. He organized the Malcolm Bliss Psychiatric Institute and dedicated his life to helping the poor. He was also an Instructor in the Washington University School of Medicine.

http://www.historyhappenshere.org/sites/default/files/250%20Master%20People%20List.pdf

http://collections.mohistory.org/archive/ARC:A0137 

General Tasker Howard Bliss (born in Lewisburg, PA in 1853 and died in Washington, D.C. in 1930) was U.S. Army Chief of Staff during WWI. He accompanied President Wilson’s adviser Colonel House to London in 1917 and was appointed U.S. representative to the Allied Supreme War Council at the Paris Peace Conference. He supported lenient treatment of Germany and Austria-Hungary and lobbied for U.S. involvement in the League of Nations. General Bliss’s assignment concluded in December 1919. He dedicated the last years of his life to eliminating war which he considered a “primitive response” to national issues.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/thbliss.htm

The Peace Conferences began on January 18, 1919. World War I had not yet ended, although the fighting had stopped. Diplomats from over two dozen countries gathered to seek a way to end the war. The Treaty of Versailles was signed, and the League of Nations was formed out of this conference. 

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin is the moving story of the family bonds that both save us and tear us asunder. 

''...this is a story about the failures of love, and the Pause was the first." from The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin

Fiona Skinner, 102 years old and a renowned poet, returns to the podium for the first time in twenty-five years. A girl arises from the audience with a question: Who was Luna?

The Luna of Fiona's most famous poetry inspired women to name their daughters Luna. And this girl, named Luna, asks for her mother the question--who was Luna?

Fiona wrote the poem "a lifetime ago," "back when I was a romantic," she responds. The girl presses. And for the first time ever Fiona reveals the story of her family and the secret she has held in her heart for so long.

"Once upon a time," she begins, "there was a father and a mother and four children...and for a time they were happy."

And like Fiona's audience, enrapt, I was carried away by her story of the ways love carries us and fails us and how we turn from each other and how we carry each other. Her story of love's truth, it's bitterness and how it is the only thing that makes life endurable, and our deeply held illogical hope, which experience tells us is fantasy, that love can and will save us.

And that is all I am going to tell you. I still feel the warm heartache, the fullness and pressure in my chest, the awful truth I encountered in this fiction. 

Look around at your beloved family, the people you have given yourselves to, the people who cut the deepest and brought the fullest healing, who made you strong and brought you to your knees. The people you endeavor to protect and save, the people you have lost and haunt you. And tell me--what is love? 

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Last Romantics

by Tara Conklin

William Morrow

publication February 5, 2019

$26.99 hardcover

ISBN: 9780062358202

ISBN 10: 0062358200

This is Not a Love Song, Stories by Brendan Mathews

Last year I enjoyed reading Brendan Mathew's first novel The World of Tomorrow. Reading his first collection of stories This is Not a Love Song brought me a new appreciation of Mathews. If World was a fun romp into the past with an action ending, the short stories are an examination of the human experience on a deeper level. I was moved, I related, and I was entertained.

There are stories about we believe we know--about love and family and life--but discover aren't true. Stories about coming to terms with life, or not coming to terms. 

The first story, Heroes of the Revolution, was also one of my favorites. An American female college student is responsible for providing visiting foreign journalists with typical American experiences. She takes them to pick apples, but walking through the orchard stirs memories, revealing the student's sheltered life while the journalists grapple with the lasting damage of the atrocities they personally lived through.

This is Not a Love Song questions the nature of art and friendship as one woman pursues a music career while her friend captures her life on film.

I loved Airborne, the story of how having a child transformed a couple's life and relationship, the crazy obsession over a child's safety, which in the story goes to an extreme, but which I well remember with the birth of my only child.

How Long Does the First Part Last? is about unrequited love.

Dunn & Sons is "the story my father never tells;" three generations of men share stories that connect them and those that split them, and the stories that "might save us" if "ever told the right way."

Look at Everything is an amazing story about a photography student who by accident causes a fire and responds by taking photographs instead of reporting it.

The Drive takes an ironic peek behind the ubiquitous story of a dad taking the babysitter home.

Henry and his Brother speaks to the bonds of fraternal love and a mutual need that transcends family ties.

In Salvage, a man working in the shady business of removing architectural pieces from ruined buildings finds the item that he thinks will finally change his luck and life.

The last story, My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer, reads like a parody and comedy but feels like a tragedy involving the love triangle between a clown, a tightrope walker, and a lion tamer.

I can't wait to see what Mathews does next.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

This Is Not a Love Song
by Brendan Mathews
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 05 Feb 2019
ISBN 9780316382144
PRICE $26.00 (USD)

Jane Austen for Kids

Jane Austen for Kids: Her Life, Writings, and World by Nancy I. Sanders was written for ages 9 and up, but don't think you are too old to read it! This is a great resource for any reader new to Jane Austen and her world. I have been reading and learning about Austen since 1978 and Sanders taught me a few things.

One biographer stated that Austen led an uneventful life, which is how her Victorian Age family wanted her portrayed. Sanders touches on the many ways Austen's life was far from uneventful: family scandals, illness and horrible deaths, wars and epidemics, the loss of a beloved home, romances gone awry, and fame that brought her to the attention of a Prince.

I loved the excerpts from Austen's juvenilia! Her wicked humor and parodies are such fun. What a great way to get kids to connect. A summary of each novel is given.

The 21 projects included are great ideas to make Austen's world come alive. There are instructions on how to play Whist and illustration of popular dances. Kids can create imitate side whiskers and roll their hair with tied cotton strips. There are writing activities.

I can't wait to try the Knight family gingercake recipe! And as a sewer, the reticle will be fun to make.

Jane Austen model

This is a great introduction to Austen.

This book is part of the For Kids series from Chicago Review Press. Books cover a wide diversity of subjects from history and biographies of authors, artists, inventors, explorers, and more. Learn more about the series here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Jane Austen for Kids
by Nancy I. Sanders
Chicago Review Press
Publication February 5, 2019
ISBN 9781613738535, 1613738536
Trade Paperback  $16.99 USD, £14.99 GBP

Helen Korngold Diary: January 27- February 2, 1919

Helen Korngold, December 1919, New York City

January
Monday 27

Yesterday the gods showered flowers upon me—roses—carnations and sweet peas. That dance last night was a regular E. St. Louis affair. Nothing special today. Talked with Pauline a whole hour in library. Mr. Russack told us all about my friend E.—Gee, I’m all off him for life! He called up today, but I was asleep.

Tuesday 28
Wellston—Class! It’s all wrong—I almost fell asleep in Ed. That fellow Ellenburg calls up too often. Lecture was wonderful—all about paper & China—by a Dr. Willet of Chicago University. Since Mr. Goldstine told us about Ellenburg I’m sorry I ever went out with him, or yet, he treated me fine.

Wednesday 29
Wellston—Actually dozed in Ed 4. Ordered gowns & caps. They told me Ellenburg phoned again, but thank goodness it was Joe Raskas! At least, he doesn’t pester me with proposals. Beastly tired. To bed at 10 P.M.

Friday 31
Wellston—This is the first day I’ve felt gay for at least 72 hours! I don’t know why, but—oh well, I suppose it’s the effect of last night—I do love chop suey!—especially chicken. Dancing in gym is getting complicated. Miss Grant is wonderful. Last night Summer told me Dewey Pierre has been sent to New Mexico—he’s bound for the coast, I suppose.

February

Saturday 1
Papa left for N.Y. and I gave him a long list of questions to answer. I know he won’t do it. Junior Council luncheon at Grand Leader—Mrs. Leonard spoke—so also did Mrs. Halpern—she’s a doll. Beatrice appointed me chairman of party committee—I’ve got one big job before me. Went around curio room in Leader with Mrs. H. - Shopped & home.

Sunday 2
Just like all other Sundays—fooled around all day. Expect to get lesson tonight if Aunt Beryl ever comes. Awful Ellenberg called up! Threatened to commit suicide if I didn’t allow him to call! I won’t allow it. He’s too much for me. Said he’d meet me on train to Cole! Not if I know it!

*****

NOTES:

January 27

Several Russack families appear in the St. Louis Census. Samuel Russack in 1916 was Vice President of Peckham’s Pleating and Ostrich Feather Renovating Company. Samuel was in Real Estate on the 1920 St. Louis Census, with a son Martin, age 17. Samuel was Magyar in heritage.

January 28

Dr. Herbert L. Willet of Chicago University spoke on “The Changing Orient.”

Albert E Goldstein, B.S.  His June 1917 WWI Draft Card showed he was born February 20, 1896, and was tall with a medium build and had brown hair and eyes. He was a student. Albert E. Goldstein appears on the 1916 and 1917 St. Louis City Directory as a student living on Morgan St.

In 1930 and 1931 he appears as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry at Washington University. He is a full professor into the 1958 City Directories. He died in 1971.

January 29

Joseph Ruvlin Raskas in 1916 was attending the University of Illinois. His June 1917 WWI Draft Registration shows he was a student at Washington University. He appears in the 1917 Washington University yearbook and in the Class of 1919 Freshman Medical School photo.

The 1917 St. Louis City Directory shows  Joseph R. Raskas working for the St. Louis Neckwear Company and living at 4401 Page Blvd., the same street the Korngold family lived on. In 1944 he is working for the Raskas Sales & Service Company and still on Page Blvd.

passport photo for Joseph Raskas

Joseph R. Raskas was born on May 19, 1895, to Isaac S. Raskas and Sophia Saranson, both born in Russia. A 1921 passport request included an Oath of Allegiance. Joe was traveling for personal business to visit his father Isaac who was living in Palestine. Isaac appears to be appointed to the U.S. Consular post in Israel. The passport shows that Joseph was 26 years old, 5’6’ tall with a high forehead, brown eyes, prominent nose, round chin, dark hair and oval face. His WWII Draft Registration shows him living with Lottie in Evansville, IL and self-employed. In 1924, 19230, 1939 and 1943 (living in New York City),  he appears on passenger lists traveling to Europe. R. Raskas also appears on a passenger list in 1950. He was living in Baltimore when he passed away in 1981.

January 31

Miss Florence Grant, A.B. was Director of  Physical Training for Women until June 1919 when she retired to marry. She was cited as having awakened increasing interest in PE among women at the university, which included hockey and swimming.

February 1

article from Jewish Voice

The Grand Leader Department Store was located at 601 Washington Ave. Built in 1906 as Stix, Baer & Fuller, it was one of the premier department stores in St. Louis. Expanded in 1919, it became the Grand Leader Department store.

In 1879 Julius and Sigmond Baer opened a dry goods store in Arkansas which thrived and grew. After they were joined by their brother-in-law Aaron Fuller they decided to relocate to St. Louis. The men contacted Charles A. Stix, a St. Louis civic leader and in 1892 the Stix, Baer and Fuller department store was opened. In the 1980s they were bought out by Dillard's.
'
https://plus.google.com/photos/102332006155314414372/albums/4969145109586378769/4969145400627167250?banner=pwa&pid=4969145400627167250&oid=102332006155314414372

Goggle+ Being Elminated!

Goggle+ is being shut down in April 2019 "due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers' expectations."

If you are one of my 74 Goggle+ followers you will need to change to another way to follow my blog posts after April.

On the right column near the top is a "follow by email" option. Each post will appear in your mailbox in total with no need to visit the website.

Further down is another group of followers through Bloglovin' and there is a "follow" button there. You can set up a daily notice to receive all Bloglovin' mail in one email with links to each blog you follow.

I have a Facebook page for The Literate Quilter where I post links to my blog posts.

To follow my book reviews outside of my blog there are many options.

I am on Twitter at @NancyAdairB
https://twitter.com/NancyAdairB

I am on Goodreads at
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/28397995-nancy

And on Book Bub at
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/2594538394

The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers

I don't gamble. I don't buy raffle tickets or lottery tickets or visit the casinos. To me, it's throwing money away. I harbor no dreams of "hitting it big." I don't find it intriguing and it doesn't sound like fun. Then, I'm not motivated by money, although I never had much either.

That made me standoffish about Bridgett M. Davis' memoir about her mother who for 34 years was a numbers runner working out of her Detroit home. But...it's Detroit...and I had to at least take a look at this book.

The book is a paen to Fannie Davis who used her wits and charisma--and a lot of hard work--to ensure that her children had a comfortable home and a good life.

The Davis family had moved to Detroit for the same reason as my family did: the dream of a job in the auto industry. Davis loved her father, but with frail health no regular work, he was unable to support his family.

Fannie didn't want her kids growing up in a vermin-ridden slum house. So, Davis's mom had a choice: work in the home of a white person, for little pay, and away from her own family all day, or get creative.

She got creative. And built a business.

This memoir offers a good understanding of Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s, filled with specifics and local color. One learns the history of numbers in the African American community, it's economic importance, and how it works.

Davis talks about the secretiveness about her mom's work, how the legal lottery impacted the numbers, and her desire to get away from Detroit for college and work.

Above all, Fannie Davis shines as her daughter paints a larger-than-life image of her mom.

I received a free ebook from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers
by Bridgett M. Davis
Little, Brown and Company
Pub Date 29 Jan 2019
ISBN 9780316558730
PRICE $28.00 (USD)

WIP Quilts, Books, and News

Winter arrived in Michigan! It has been bitter cold. It's perfect weather to quilt and read.

I completed a project from my weekly quilt group's "free table" exchange. Another quilter had started a twelve block quilt in wool and flannel. The incomplete blocks were given up. I finished the embroidery, cobbled together pieces to complete one block, and machine quilted the project.

I finished the Little Red Riding Hood quilt top. I set the seven 1919 Redwork patterns with other vintage patterns that seemed to fit the story: a basket, strawberries, Grandma's house, bunnies hiding in the woods.

I loved the Little Red Riding Hood prints from Riley Blake. I used two from the collection for the top and have another for the backing. I'll bind the quilt with the red fabric.

 I used perle emrboidery thread for the Redwork.

I decided the Thistle fabric quilt needed a border. Now it is ready!

I won a wonderful gift on American Historical Fiction Facebook Group! The giveaway from Anne Howard Creel included a signed first edition of her new book, a lovely tote bag, and pretty coasters. Anne's book is about a flood, an abused wife, and her step-daughter.

The Sunday paper's Parade magazine highlighted two memoirs I have read and reviewed. The World According to Fannie Davis by Bridgitt Davis (my review will appear tomorrow) and Maid by Stephanie Land, which I reviewed last week.

Books I have on my table include the memoir Lost Without the River by Barbara Hoffbeck Scobie, courtesy of Caitlin Hamiton Marketing & Publicity,

and Make Me A City by Jonathan Carr, a LibraryThing win.

painting by Joyce Gochenour, my mother

For some reason, I have won a record number of books on giveaways! From Goodreads I won That Churchill Woman, Camelot's End by Jon Ward on Kennedy and Carter, Unmarriageable by Sonia Kamal based on Pride and Prejudice, and Northward by Chuck Radda. And I won Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? by Bill McKibben from LibraryThing. 

I just read and reviewed The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin, a LibraryThing win; look for my review next month. I an also reading an ebook win from Goodreads, Imagine That! by ark Finn about an eight-year-old boy with an active imagination.

My NetGalley shelf is thin because I am going to have cataract surgery in February and March! No more trifocals! I know I won't be able to hand as much reading for a while. I am excited because I am going to get a special lens to correct the astigmatism that has plagued me all my life! 

I am reading The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books about Christopher Columbus's son and his quest to build the largest library; Three Sheets to the Wind about nautical terms that have come into our every day language; and The Road to Grantchester, a prequel to the Grantchester series. 

TBR is The Editor by Stephen Rowley author of Lily and the Octopus, The Life and Death of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story, and The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith whose The Last Painting of Sara DeVos I read.

We have been dog sitting our grandpuppy Ellie! Our son had long days at the office and dropped her off before work and picked her up at the end of the day. 

Ellie is only four months out of the puppy mill. She was dropped off at a vet for putting down! Safe Harbor Animal Rescue in Vermillion Ohio was contacted and now Ellie is a pampered pooch.

She is blossoming into a lovely girl. 

Rescues make the BEST PETS.

The Falconer by Dana Czapnik

Sometimes a book finds me that I would not have found by myself. That is how The Falconer by Dana Czapnik came into my life--as an unexpected package from the publisher.

Reading it was about a seventeen-year-old girl in 1993 New York City whose passion was basketball and who has a crush on her best friend Percy, I wondered if I would care for the book. Sure, there was advance praise from Column McCann, Salmon Rushdie, Chloe Benjamin--but could I relate to the story?

I opened the book and started reading. The opening scene finds the protagonist, "pizza bagel" Lucy, playing basketball with Percy. I've seen basketball games. Only when the tickets were free. But the writing was so good, I found myself drawn into the scene, turning pages. There was something about this book, about Lucy's voice.

On the surface, I had nothing in common with Lucy. And yet Lucy felt familiar, her concerns and fears universal.

In telling the story of one particular girl from a particular place and time, the author probes the eternal challenges of growing up female: conformity and acceptance by one's peer group while staying true to oneself; crushes on boys who don't see you; concerns about our attractiveness; what we give up for love; is the world is chaotic and without order, or can we find joy and hope?

There was a multitude of lines and paragraphs that I noted for their wisdom, beauty, and insight. I reread sections, scenes that elicited emotion or thoughtfulness.

I felt Lucy was channeling Holden Caulfield, who I met as a fourteen-year-old in Freshman English class in 1967. The Catcher in the Rye was life-changing for me, a voice unlike any I had encountered in a novel. The New York City setting, the wandering across the city, the characters met, the rejection of the parental values and lifestyle, Lucy's misunderstanding of a song line--Lucy is a female Holden, updated to the 1990s.

Lucy tells us that in Central Park is a statue of a boy releasing a falcon. She loves this statue but resents that only boys are portrayed in the way of the statue, that girls are shown nude or as children like the Alice in Wonderland statue. She sees in the joy and hope in The Falconer.

The Falconer, Central Park

Lucy experiences many things in the novel, including some pretty bad stuff. But she is resilient, holding to the joy and beauty she finds around her, the "the perfect jump shot" moments. She will inspire young readers and offer those of us whose choices were made long ago a journey of recollection and the affirmation of mutually shared experience.

I received a free ARC from the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Falconer
by Dana Czapnik
Atria Books
Publication: January 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-9322
$25 hardbound

The Peacock Feast by Lisa Gornick

Lisa Gornick's The Peacock Feast is a multi-generational historical fiction novel with a deep and universal theme that can speak across the generations. Gornick's characters take the burden of the past into their futures, cutting them off from a full life. Suppressed memories are as constricting as those which consume us; neither allow us to risk a full life.

The Peacock Feast was Louis Tiffany's "performance art" dinner for a select group of top-tier society men, every minutia controlled by him. Prudence is in her nineties and the event is her earliest memory, watching the parade of girls carrying the cooked fowl redressed in their gaudy feathers. She recalls her hand over the mouth of a small boy.

Prudence's parents were employed by the Tiffany family at Laurelton Hall, the Oyster Bay home Tiffany designed. Her father was his gardener and her mother worked as a housekeeper. After Tiffany blew up the breakwater that created what he believed was his private beach, and which the town insisted was for all, Prudence's family left. Her older brother Randall couldn't stand their father's drinking and ran away from home, never to see Prudence again.

Prudence made a career, married a man because she'd be crazy to say no to, and later in life fell in love but was afraid to say yes. Now, in her last months, Randall's granddaughter Grace has sought Prudence out and together they piece the mystery of their family's history and the traumatic incident that divided them.

The story skips back and forth in time between generations; a family tree on your bookmark may be helpful to keep track of them. Reoccuring choices appear in the family, generations unwittingly mirroring each other. 

Gornick has given us a beautifully written book, complex with characters' stories across four generations. For all the sorrow and heartbreak in her character's lives, we are left with understanding and hope.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read an excerpt and find a reading guide here.

The Peacock Feast
by Lisa Gornick
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sarah Crichton Books
Pub Date 05 Feb 2019
ISBN 9780374230548
PRICE $26.00 (USD)