Pancakes Aplenty, a Vintage Cook Book Written by a Murdered Food Critic

I love vintage finds at a library book sale. This winter I came home with Pancakes Aplenty published in 1962. The illustrations alone are worth the 50 cents I paid! I do love Mid-Century illustrative art!

For those planning on a pancake dinner for Fat Tuesday, here are some recipes to consider. Author Ruth Ellen Church reminds us that pancakes freeze well and can be reheated in the oven or on a griddle; using a toaster makes them tougher.

Don't worry about lumps--"most pancakes are lighter and more tender if they aren't mixed too well." Also, don't fry them but use a lightly greased griddle. Heat the griddle until a drop of water sizzles. Flip the cake when bubbles form but before they burst.

You can create shaped pancakes, even adding blueberries or raisins for eyes.

The recipes are drawn from across time and continents and include some I have never heard of. They use sweet-potatoes and squash, chocolate and carrots,  orange juice and eggnog.

Old-Fashioned Batty Cakes have no flour and are recommended as an accompaniment for fried chicken! 4 servings

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 tsp soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 well-beaten egg
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Mix the dry ingredients. Add egg and buttermilk and beat until smooth. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased skillet and bake until brown, turning once.

Another corn-based pancake is Fluffy Corn Cakes which used cream-style corn. For 5-6 servings.

• 2 cups flour
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 well-beaten eggs
• 1 lb cane of cream-style corn
• 2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter

Combine dry ingredients. Combine eggs, corn, milk, and butter. Stir into the dry ingredients, mixing lightly. Bake on a lightly greased griddle until golden brown, turning once. Serve with maple syrup or with quick chicken filling.

Quick Chicken Filling

• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 soup-can of milk
• 1 can (5 oz) of boned chicken
• 1 tablespoon chopped pimento

Dilute soup with milk and add chicken and pimento. Heat. Fill and top 8 pancakes. Add 2 tablespoons of toasted slivered almonds if desired. Tuna or ham may be substituted for chicken.

Some recipes are quite strange!

Onion-Pimento Pancakes with Cheese Sauce
5 servings
These red-and-green speckled cakes are easily prepared for brunch, lunch, or supper when you are in a hurry. Add a green salad and brown-and-serve sausages to the meal.

• 2 cups pancake mix
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons chopped pimento
• 2 tablespoons chopped green pepper

Add milk to mix and stir lightly. Fold in onion, pimento, and green pepper. Pour 1/4 cup batter for each pancake onto hot, lightly greased griddle. Bake until golden brown, turning once.

Cheese Sauce

• 1/2 pound processed cheese
• 1 cup milk

Cut cheese into pieces. Heat with milk over boiling water, stirring, until cheese melts. Serve over pancakes.

Mom made Potato Pancakes served with "heat and serve" sausage and applesauce. Church suggests also serving them with sour cream or gooseberry sauce. Mom soaked the grated potatoes in cold water to remove the starch.

• 2 cups grated raw potatoes
• 1/3 c milk
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Stir grated potatoes into milk, add remaining ingredients and mix. Drop onto buttered frying skillet and cook slowly until well browned and crisp on both sides.

Gingerbread Pancakes

• 7-9 servings  Bake on a moderately heated griddle and turn carefully.
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 cup  molasses
• 1 well-beaten egg
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil or butter

Stir dry ingredients; combine liquids. Blend until smooth. Bake on very lightly oiled griddle at moderate heat, turning carefully when browned underneath. Serve hot with applesauce and whipped cream. 

Quick Calas (Rice Cake) These cakes are especially nice for Sunday morning breakfast served with jam or syrup or pineapple sauce.

• 2 cups cooked rice
• 3 well-beaten eggs
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder

Mix rice, eggs, vanilla, and nutmeg. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix. Bake on lightly greased hot griddle.

Pineapple Sauce

• 1 9-oz can crushed pineapple
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water

Mix and simmer 10 minutes.

 Tortillas are just another kind of 'pancake.'

This book includes waffle recipes.

 And French toast, yeast pancakes, and fritter recipes.

Ham Fritters with Bananas
4-6 servings

• 2 cups ground cooked ham
• 2 beaten eggs
• 1/4 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 4 small bananas peeled and halved
• lemon juice 
• flour

Add ham to eggs with flour, milk, and onion. Add salt and pepper if the ham is bland. Drop into deep got fat at 365 degrees. Coo, 3-5 minutes until done. Dip bananas in lemon and coat with flour. Fry in the kettle until brown.

 Another section offers recipes for Omelets.

French Omelet
one serving

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk or water
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper

Mix eggs, milk, salt and pepper with a fork. Avoid foaminess. Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a 7- or 8-inch omelet pan or skillet, rotate pan to coat well, and pour off the excess. The pan just be just hot enough to make a drop of water sizzle.

Pour in the egg mixture and reduce heat. As the eggs begin to thicken at edges, draw the cooked portions toward the center with a fork so that the uncooked portion flow to the bottom. Tilt pan as necessary to hasten the flow of uncooked eggs. Do not stir and keep the mixture as level as possible. Shake skillet occasionally to keep from sticking. When eggs no longer flow and the surface is still moist, increase heat to brown bottom quilting. Loosen edge, roll with a fork onto a serving plate. Cooking time should be about 5 minutes.

Other omelet recipes incorporate codfish, potato and bacon, shrimp, and cooked noddles!

The last section of the cookbook gives recipes for butters, 'sirups', sauces, and fillings. Sauces with rum, avocado, and even white grapes are included!

WHO WAS RUTH ELLEN CHURCH? Check in next Saturday and learn about her career as Mary Meade and her tragic murder!

American Romantic by Ward Just

Harry had killed a man and it set him apart.~from American Romantic by Ward Just

Another TBR shelf book that was waiting for its time was Ward Just's American Romantic. The passing of the author spurred me to take it down to read. My first acquaintance with Just was his Pulitizer Prize-nominated novel An Unfinished Season. I have been a fan ever since.

Just was a war correspondent in Vietnam; his novels explore the disenchantment of individuals who discover the failings of Washington D.C. politics.

The novels are beautifully written, focusing on the internal growth of the characters, not page-turners with gripping plotlines. My favorite kind of novel!

American Romantic begins with Harry's life-altering experiences in Vietnam and his brief love affair with a German ex-pat nurse. Harry's career takes him across the world as an ambassador. He marries a woman who isn't up to the role of ambassador's wife. His war wounds are constant reminders of his time in Vietnam and the boy soldier he killed. He grows old in a foreign land that is less foreign to him now than America and his Connecticut home. But the lessons garnered at his wealthy father's dinner table, with political guests conversing on Washington D.C. news while sidestepping things that can't be spoken remain the most lasting.

After I read a book I do look at reviews. You can read an excellent review by Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post here.

Favorite quotes from American Romantic:

We live in a turnstile of lies.

Americans are romantic, she said.
I would not say romantic. I would say optimistic. ..
...They take pride in their makeovers, a nation of actors, or should I say playwrights, each examining her own story. That's the myth, anyhow. A nation in an eternal state of rewrite.

What have you learned, Harry?... What have the years taught you?
At my father's table failure was more instructive, more revealing than success.
...all the stories they told had something missing...To go beyond that certain point might have--would have--undermined faith in the system....they were deep in their memories, pondering what they were unable--not unwilling but unable--to say aloud. The missing piece.

And do you want to know something else? The stakes are not small. This world is filled with mischief, and more than mischief. Time retreats. Time advances. Time is discontinuous. Time is always in motion, like the waves of a great sea. And failure is more commanding than success.

He had the idea that there were rules somewhere and that if you followed the rules things would come out all right...And without warning your world turned upside down. No logic to it.

The Holdout by Graham Moore

"When the villains are so clear, we can tuck ourselves into bed at night knowing that we're nothing like them. But what if it's not so clear?"~from The Holdout by Graham Moore

The jury from a notorious murder trial is brought together by a reality television show. The trial of a black teacher accused of murdering his white teenage student looked like a sure verdict until Maya channeled 12 Angry Men to turn the guilty votes to not guilty. The experience motivated Maya to become a lawyer.

Jury member Rick, one of the few black jurists, spent the last ten years trying to prove Maya was wrong and that they had let the murderer of a teenage girl go free. He claims to have proof. During the sequester of the jury, he and Maya conducted a secret love affair before their differing verdicts drove them apart.

At the reunion, Maya and Rick talk for the first time since the trial. Then, Rick is found dead and Maya is accused of his murder. Maya now must prove her innocence.

Readers learn the backstories of the jurors while Maya uncovers startling evidence that leads the jurors to reconvene, consider the facts, and cast their votes once again.

Graham Moore's courtroom drama The Holdout is entertaining with a convoluted resolution.

Moore's previous novel was The Last Days of Night and he authored the award-winning script The Imitation Game.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Holdout
by Graham Moore
Random House Publishing Group - Random House
Pub Date 18 Feb 2020
ISBN 9780399591778
PRICE $28.00 (USD)

The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman

It was a time of social turmoil.

The working man wanted his voice heard in government. The Chartist movement was met with a violent reaction from the powers that be; the leaders were imprisoned or they fled the country.

It was an age of science.

Gentlefolk became amateur naturalists, collecting specimens of life living and dead. Fossil discoveries caused great wonder. Theories were created to explain the fossil records, some contorted to fit the Christian idea of time and history. Scandalous books were published suggesting a natural history that upset the Christian hegemony.

In natural law, Constantia knew, there is no justice. Suffering does not matter at all...We have a better idea than that despicable one. We can imagine something far better. We have imagined it; do imagine it; and we call it God.~from The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman

My Victorian Age professor had our class read pivotal books published in 1859, including The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. The professor told us that the ideas behind Darwin's book had been around; Darwin's genius was to put the puzzle pieces together, grounded in sound scientific research. Darwin dragged his feet publishing his theory, knowing the havoc it would bring.

The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman is set in 1846 when people were beginning to think about the questions Darwin finally, publicly, addressed in 1859.

There is a mysterious woman at the heart of the novel who goes by the alias Mrs. McAdams. She left her husband and traveled to the city to give birth to twins, one of whom died a month later. She is enlisted to be a wet nurse to a brilliant family who warmly welcomes her.

Mrs. McAdams struggles with issues of identity. Her mother's early death left clouded her true paternity. And she wonders about the big questions: are we ruled by chance, nature, or God? What does it mean to be human? What separates us from other creatures?

Several books are central in the novel, books that arouse deep thoughts from the characters. One is the 1845 best-selling, iconoclastic Vestiges of the National History of Creation. Another is the 1831 On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, which sounds like a yawner, but its appendix included a discussion of natural selection.

Vestiges became a best-seller. It appears and reappears in the novel, traveling from hand to hand.

They were dangerous things, book; best locked safely away in cages, like fierce beasts in a menagerie. ~from The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman

Mrs. McAdams's backstory is slowly revealed. Her quest to find her natural father takes her on an interesting and surprising journey. She questions many things--why a baby with extra digits is not embraced as an evolutionary improvement; whether things happen by chance or design; if humankind has the power--clearly, it does have the will--to reverse the spinning of the galaxies. 

The Great Unknown is an idea-driven story, and I found myself intrigued to read on for the questions posed are timeless.

As a quilter interested in quilt and fiber history, I was interested in Mrs. McAdam's vocation creating 'bizarres', designs for roller-printed cottons that were popular in the 1840s. Her designs were inspired by the minuscule life she discovered under the powerful new microscopes. Science had even invaded fashion! Colors, too. The newly discovered aniline dyes replaced the plant-based dyes, and new colors rose to popularity: mauve and purple, chrome yellow and orange, and greens that did not fade to blue or tan or rely on arsenic.

1830s-40s prints. 

Our heroine's journey takes her into her past to discover her true family roots before she returns to her husband. All their hopes are realized in a strange and circular way in a satisfying resolution.

In the 19th c, science was embraced as a panacea to society's ills, a way to reverse the natural order. Science disturbed the status quo and challenged Biblical authority, upended humanity's place in the universe and scheme of things.

But as Mrs. McAdams and we know, it appears that chance is what really rules the universe.

I was granted access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Great Unknown
by Peg Kingman
W. W. Norton & Company
Pub Date 18 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781324003366
PRICE $26.95 (USD)

If Anyone Asks, Say I Died From the Heartbreaking Blues by Philip Cioffari

If Anyone Asks, Say I Died From the Heartbreaking Blues by Philip Cioffari is a nostalgic journey into a specific time and place. A novel this personal can be limiting for the reader, but Cioffari's hero's transformative experience is moving and universal.

The day Hunter turns eighteen is also the night of his Senior Prom. His date is the girl of his dreams. Beginning in the morning as his job takes him across the hot beach sand, fearful his date would see him hawking orangeade, he holds huge expectations that it will be a very special night.

Little did he know it would be a night of rejection and of finding love, of fear and heroism, an episodic journey from childhood to manhood.

Music and movies ground the novel in a specific period. I loved, for instance, his description of the sound of the sax in Harlem Nocturne as "the hollowed-out echo of a soul's longing."

Poetry is a part of Hunt's life. He is friends with a homeless man whose academic career was lost to "wine and Irish whiskey." Hunt stops by to hear the man's latest rewrite of T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men. Hunt and Johnnie Jay banter phrases of The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock while wandering the nighttime city streets.

I noted similarities to The Catcher in the Rye: the New York setting, the teenage protagonist's episodic encounters across a varied landscape, hanging out in bars and getting a beating, the deceased brother. But whereas Holden is unable to act on his vision of saving children from the realities of adulthood, Hunt takes selfless risks to protect others several times over.

I was intrigued to know more about Cioffari's motivation for his novel and invited him to contribute his thoughts.

*****

Nostalgia and its Benefits
by Philip Cioffari

One way of looking at nostalgia is that it is a strategy for whitewashing the past, of remembering only the good things. The way, for example, folks of a certain age talk about the good old days. Of course the truth of the matter, if we take a sober look, is that the good old days were in fact a mixture of good days and bad days. Each moment we live through has its share of stress, struggle, highs and lows. We can select which side of the equation we want to emphasize. To some extent, it’s a matter of conscious choice. But not, I think, completely so.

When I look back upon the period of the late fifties/early sixties, the time period of my novel, If Anyone Asks, Say I Died From the Heartbreaking Blues, I have a generally warm feeling for both the age and the setting, the Bronx, where I grew up. But if I step back a moment, I realize that the era was also an emotionally turbulent one for me. I mean that in the sense of the growing pains we all suffer through in the process of figuring out who we are and what our place is in the world. So to write a truthful book I knew I had to present both the joys and sorrows of coming of age at that time.

Childhood (including adolescence) is a flame that throughout our lives, no matter to what advanced age we live, burns inside us. I choose the verb burn advisedly because I don’t think any one of us makes it through that period of our lives without experiencing a significant amount of hurt. The extent to which that affects the way we live thereafter varies with each of us. I know, for me, it colors a lot of what I do and think. It works its way into my writing in various ways, sometimes pushing my stories to the darker side. With this novel, however, I wanted to take a lighter approach, to present our growing pains in a more amusing, if not outright comical, manner.

So I chose senior prom night, which also happens to coincide with my main character Hunt’s eighteenth birthday, making the day and the event doubly significant. The story unfolds over that twenty-four hour period. Romance, heartbreak, recovery, new beginnings—all make an appearance.

Among the many influences on the story I would mention the music of that period as one of the strongest. I spent a lot of time listening to old records, each with its particular memories attached, and I chose song titles for the novel’s four sections: Try the Impossible; In the Still of the Night; Shake, Rattle and Roll; and Earth Angel. 

The movies of that era were another influence. Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild Ones, East of Eden, Some Came Running, King Creole (an early Elvis film), Singing in the Rain, Marjorie Morningstar—to name but a few. I loved the strength of both the male and female characters—their ability to rise above adversity, their hope and resilience.

Perhaps the strongest of my influences, though, were literary ones: the passion of the Beats in their poems and essays, the works of Tennessee Williams and Graham Greene and Carson McCullers, among others. But if I had to choose one particular work it would be, most assuredly, The Catcher in the Rye. It’s a novel I cherish as much now as when I first read it. What strikes me most about it is the way Holden offers help to those he encounters throughout the story. Though he is trying to manage his own problems, which are significant, though he has this tough exterior that he shows to the world, he never fails to extend a helping hand to those in need. That ability to rise above one’s own burdens to help others is what I see as my main character’s strongest virtue.

Which brings me to that other side of nostalgia I alluded to earlier—the unconscious side of it. As a species, we are continually drawn back to the past. Whether it is a disguised yearning to return to the warmth and safety of the womb, an anchor to hold onto during unhappy periods in our lives, a way of enhancing the present moment, or simply a chance to relive our experience with people and places no longer available to us, nostalgia serves many purposes.
In the most positive light, it’s a way of bringing our lives full circle, of preserving and relishing our most significant experiences, reminding us of all the good things that have made us who we are.

*****

I love a good memoir, fictional or nonfiction. Cioffari's is rooted in a specific time and place, and yet readers will recognize the timelessness and universal human experience so beautifully rendered.

I received an ARC. My review is fair and unbiased.

IF ANYONE ASKS, SAY I DIED FROM THE HEARTBREAKING BLUES
by Philip Cioffari
Livingston Press/University of West Alabama
Pub Date 14 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781604892383
PRICE $24.95 hardcover (USD)/$17.95 paperback

Inland by Tea Obreht

At the turn of the century, deep in the middle of the Arizona desert, Nora waits for her missing husband to return with water. Racked with thirst, Nora talks to her dead infant while tending to her vision-impaired son and her husband's superstitious niece. Two older sons are getting into trouble instead of running their dad's newspaper.

At the same time, a haunted immigrant Muslim 'Turk' and his comrade camel recall their many adventures with the army and running from the law.

This wild and original idea for a Western tale delves into new territory filled with desert and thirst, lawmen and murder, secret desires and secret liaisons, ghosts, and alien monsters.

Obreht is a masterful stylist and Inland is brimming with quotable lines from descriptive to insightful.

Stowaway burrs dimpled her hem. ~from Inland by Tea Obreht

The longer I live, Burke, the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions.~from Inland by Tea Obreht

Life's happiness is always a famine, and what little we find interest nobody. What use is it, the happiness of some stranger? At worst, it driver onlookers to envy; at best, it bored them. ~from Inland by Tea Obreht 

Where did Obreht come up with the idea behind this unusual story? History.

Red Ghost terrorized the wilds of Arizona

Obreht was inspired by real people and events. The U.S. Army did have a plan to employ camels and camel drivers, feral camels did roam the west after the plan fell through. Hi Jolly in the novel was one of the camel drivers.

Wedding photo of Hi Jolly/Hadji Ali

Read about the Camel Corps and Hi Jolly
https://armyhistory.org/the-u-s-armys-camel-corps-experiment/
https://military.wikia.org/wiki/United_States_Camel_Corps
https://truewestmagazine.com/hi-jolly-camel-corps/
https://chicagomonitor.com/2016/03/the-story-of-hajj-ali-hi-jolly-and-the-u-s-camel-cavalry-corp/
https://www.thenationalherald.com/145342/legends-lore-red-ghost/

What a masterful handling of material and plotting! What gorgeous prose!

I won a copy of the book on LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

Courting Mr Lincoln by Louis Bayard

I reread Courting Mr. Lincoln by Louis Bayard in conjunction with its paperback edition blog tour.

On this second reading, I again was again impressed by Bayard's handing of Mary Todd. I love her outspokenness, her willingness to stand up to convention and assert herself. She has a stubborn streak, and yet is vulnerable.

"There had to be, in her soul, there lay some rebel contingent."~from Courting Mr. Lincoln

Mary has come to Springfield to live with a married sister. She is escaping an unhappy relationship with a stepmother but it is also intended that she find a husband, being twenty-one and on the threshold of spinsterhood. She can not settle for the available men hoisted upon her as suitable. Lincoln is unsuitable, but Mary sees his gentleness and kindness and relishes their political talk. She grew up on politics in her home.

Mary Todd Lincoln

"The man how wishes to woo me will send neither flowers nor chocolates but elections returns."~from Courting Mr. Lincoln

Lincoln describes her, and himself, as broken birds, people who have suffered and carry the scars from childhood.

"But those are the ones that turn out the toughest, arent' they? The broken ones." ~from Courting Mr. Lincoln

Courting Mr. Lincoln with Mary Todd Lincoln on
my quilt Remember the Ladies

Lincoln is self-effacing, acutely aware of his shortcomings in social status and origin, his bleak prospects as an itinerant lawyer. He does not want to drag Mary down to his level.

Abraham Lincoln c. 1946

"El Greco frame stretched beyond sufferance. A mournful well of eye. A face of bones, all badgering to break through.~from Courting Mr. Lincoln

Joshua Fry Speed

Joshua Speed, Lincoln's lifelong intimate friend and soulmate, jealously watches his friend's courtship of Mary. They had pledged to avoid marriage, remaining eternal bachelors. Bayard's Speed educated Lincoln in matters of social niceties, from apparel to dancing. Lincoln is described as brilliant but rustic to a fault.

The novel is well-grounded on historical events, from Mary's idea of making a pathway to walk into town by tossing shingles ahead to Lincoln's deep depression and indecision that caused him to leave Mary and Springfield.

Bayard wisely skirts detailing the nature of Speed and Lincoln's intimacy in sexual matters. One can read between the lines as one wishes.

Bayard's writing is wonderful, I love his descriptions and language. He brings these characters to life.

I was given a free ebook by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Courting Mr. Lincoln with my Presidents Quilt

Courting Mr. Lincoln
by Louis Bayard
Algonquin Books
February 11, 2020
ISBN-10: 1643750445
ISBN-13: 978-1643750446

Eden Mine by S. M. Hulse

I was a big fan of S. M. Hulse's debut novel Black River and have been eagerly awaiting Eden Mine. Hulse has a magic pen that creates a vivid sense of place and complex, conflicted characters embroiled in devastating moral choices.

However damaged it might be, however poisoned, however marred, it's not just our home; it's what remains of our family. ~from Eden Mine by S. M. Hulse

Tall Montana mountains on the east side casts their shadows on the valley until near noon. The silver mines left their legacy of polluted water and broken families. Jo and Samuel Faber's grandfather worked the mines for thirty years to afford a plot of land at retirement. Their father died in a mine collapse.

Eden on one side, Gethsemane on the other, the mountains define Jo's world, a paradise she loves, haunted by ghastly memories of her mother's brutal murder. Her brother Samuel had hoped to leave this dying town. Instead, he became Jo's protector, her guardian. For when the disgruntled lover murdered their mother, a bullet also struck Jo.

The orphaned siblings lost too much, including their faith, but they had each other. Samuel, Jo knew, would always protect her. Jo enjoyed "casting the world in its best light" in her paintings that she sold at the gas station gift shop, and she also saw her brother in his best light, ignoring his darker attractions and anger.

The first sentence in the novel sets the conflict: "My brother's bomb explodes at 10:16 on a late April Sunday morning." Unable to fight the takeover of their family land through eminent domain, Samuel acts out. He never planned for anyone to be hurt--that's why he bombed the courthouse on a Sunday morning.

Samuel did not know that a church met in a storefront across the street. People were hurt, including the pastor's daughter.

Sheriff Hawkins comes to Jo. He has protected the siblings since their mother's death. He knows Jo could help the law find her brother. He knows the truth of that awful day when their mother's murderer was beaten to death.

Alone to face the looming deadline to vacate their family home, besieged by law and paparazzi, Jo finds aid from an unexpected person: Pastor Asa whose daughter lays in the hospital, a victim of Samuel's bomb. He is adrift spiritually, his faith unable to explain or cure what has happened.

Samuel agonizes over how he came to come to this point. His biggest choice is yet to come. Can he change?

Jo loves her brother. How long can she remain silent about what she knows?

Pastor Asa rails at his impotence to heal what is broken, the wife who died young, his comatose daughter. He is in the desert, hoping to find the still waters of faith again.

Hulse has again offered a novel that satisfies on so many levels: the propulsive plot, characters who are sympathetic and conflicted and real, a landscape painted in detailed richness, and the universal and timeless theme of being lost and seeking forgiveness and faith.

I was given a free book by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Eden Mine
by S. M. Hulse
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub Date 11 Feb 2020
Hardcover $27.00 (USD)
ISBN: 9780374146474

The Bear by Andrew Krivak

In The Bear, Andrew Krivak weaves a hauntingly beautiful novel of elegant simplicity, visually rich and unforgettable. The story of a girl and her father surviving alone in a wilderness becomes a fable, a testament to familial love, and a portrait of humankind's place in the world.

This is a novel that entered my dreams, strangely offering a sense of peace and a feeling of oneness with the natural world. Strange because this is also a dystopian novel set in a future when mankind has disappeared and his civilization has crumbled, reverted to its basic elements. 

Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: Desolation

These two remaining humans live an idealized oneness with nature. They have some antiques--a glass window, some moldering books, a silver comb--singular heirlooms of another time. The father teaches his daughter how to fish and hunt, how to turn animal fur into clothing and blankets, how to sew shoes from leather and sinew. They drink pine needle tea and gather nuts. The weeds we heedlessly poison become their salad. The maple helicopters that we curse when cleaning the gutters are their survival food.

What a long way we have come, we humans with our large brains and big dreams and greedy appetites! I look about my yard and neighborhood and understand suddenly the plenty that surrounds me. Not just my father's apple trees that bore thousands of fruit this year, but the maple trees and the oaks down the road. Not just my raised bed of chard and kale but the weeds I diligently pull up one by one.

Krivak's heroine is aided by her totem animal, the bear whose profile is seen in the mountain where her mother's bones rest. With winter, he sleeps and the girl is aided by a puma. These magical creatures feel a kinship--a kinship humanity has rarely returned.

Oh, no, we are to conquer and subdue and use and abuse! 

But what has that gotten us?--Decimation of species, destruction of the environment, pollution that poisons us, alienation.

The gorgeous style of Krivak's writing, his story of survival and death, the love and respect shown by his characters, themes eternal and crucial, earmark this as a must-read novel.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is unbiased and fair.

Read Andrew Krivak's personal note on writing The Bear here.

The Bear
by Andrew Krivak
Bellevue Literary Press
Pub Date 11 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781942658702
PRICE $16.99 (USD)

The Light After the War by Anita Abriel

Inspired by her mother's story, Anita Abriel's The Light After the War takes readers across the world following the paths of girlhood friends Vera and Edith from Budapest to escaping the Nazis and hiding out in Austria, to Italy and Venezuela.

Believing they had lost their families and loved ones, the girls try to move on with their lives after the war. Edith dreams of becoming a fashion designer and Vera had hoped to be a playwright but settles for copywriting.

The background of Jews migrating to more tolerant societies was new and interesting. There is referred violence and death relating to the Holocaust and the girls must resist predatory men, but there is nothing graphic in the story. The concentration is on their determination and friendship, and the charmed luck their beauty brings in the form of helpers and aides along their journey.

Easy to read and easy to digest, with star-crossed lovers and jealousy, the novel felt more like a romance than heavier WWII-era historical-fiction fare. The resolution will satisfy those who believe in fate and true love.

I was given access to a free book by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The author has published under Anita Hughes with several books becoming Hallmark Channel movies.

The Light After the War
by Anita Abriel
Atria Books
Pub Date 04 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781982122973
PRICE $36.00 (CAD)

Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

If Charles Dickens and Neil Gaiman and Conan Doyle had devised a Victorian Era Gothic mystery with a female detective partial to 'medicinal' tobacco who is hired to find a kidnapped girl who is perhaps not quite human, aided by a dead man and former circus freak, it would not be outdone by Jess Kidd's Things in Jars.

The coal smoke and fog of London, complete with its olfactory smorgasbord of industry and market, the filthy Thames and its dung-filled streets, the miasma blamed for cholera and other deadly diseases is vividly described. 

The novel is Victorian in writing style, with Dickensian descriptions and sensational penny dreadful worthy murderous villains. It is populated with Resurrectionists, mudlarks, people with false identities, and avid collectors of curiosities--things in jars.

Sir Edmund has an extensive collection of aquatic life--aberrations--things in jars, including the Winter Mermaid, the Irish merrow specimen that went missing long ago. The fishy merrow could take on female human form, beautiful but dangerous killers. Sir Edmund's reclusive, 'singular daughter' has disappeared, along with her nurse and the doctor. Sir Edmund won't share details, but he is desperate to find Christabel.

Here is time held in suspension. Yesterday picked. Eternity in a jar. ~from Things in Jars by Jess Kidd

Sir Edmund has called detective Bridie Devine to find the missing girl.

Bridie's early childhood was spent with a resurrectionist--once a man of science before ruined by drink and gambling--who taught her how to determine how long a body had been dead. Then a gentleman doctor took her from the streets to groom as his assistant. Now, she helps the police, "working out how people died." She failed to find her last kidnapped child case, and perhaps that failure was why she was chosen for this case.

Bridie is a wonderful character. Like Sherlock Holmes, she dons disguises, she is identified by her choice of hat, and smokes a pipe. She is also quite modern, railing against societal restraints on women, the 'market price' of their value. Middle age is creeping up--is it too late for a lover? Ruby Doyle's ghost has been following her, claiming they had a history; there is an affection between them. Who was he?

Kidd captures a time when Darwin's theory is breaking news and science and pseudoscience is all the rage. I love the novels and era that inspired this novel, and I love this novel, too.

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Things in Jars
by Jess Kidd
Atria Books
Pub Date 04 Feb 2020
ISBN 9781982121280
PRICE $27.00 /$36.00 (CAD) hardcover

Exploring Your Artistic Voice in Contemporary Quilt Art by Sandra Sider

"How do I develop my artistic voice, and what exactly is that?" is the second most asked question in Sandra Sider's art quilt critique workshops. Inspired by the closing statement in Michelle Obama's memoir Becoming, "there's power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice," Sider was motivated to take the risk of sharing her quilts and journey as an artist in the public platform of a book. 

Stir Crazy by Sandra Sider, 60 x 42 in. Cyanotype photograms, paint on cotton

Sider begins with childhood memories of quiltmaking in her family and her early traditional quilts. In the 70s she saw quilt exhibitions that included "outsider art" that broadened her view of quiltmaking. A friend who wanted to learn to make quilts combined cyanotype images on fabric for quilts and this technique spoke to Sider and started her on her art quilt journey.

Sider shares the quilts she made over her career, explaining her growth in technique and artistic eye. She was not interested in traditional "pretty" quilts, but art that evoked a response.

Stem Cells by Sandra Sider

Sider shares what she has learned.

"Artistic voice" is not a goal, but a process, Sider writes. We sometimes get lost in the process or making a piece. We are warned to keep the purpose of your art piece in mind. Editing is important; too much machine quilting can obscure, fabric color choices may not match the message, over embellishing can create confusion.

Art education is ongoing for the artist, always trying new techniques and materials. Viewing art exhibitions can lead to new insights and inspiration. Draw from everything in your life. Keep a notebook of ideas, listen to critiques. Self-promotion is a part of a quilt artist's success.

Road Rage, digitally manipulated images of a Utah License plate,
was inspired by a solo cross-country drive

Sider's book will inspire quilt artists in their journey. Her ability to self-critique makes her a sympathetic and approachable teacher.

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Chapters:

• How Many Things Do You Know?
• How Many Things Can You Do?
• Does Your Art Education Ever End?
• You Call Yourself an Artist
• Why Critiques Can Be Helpful
• Using Your Voice

Read Sider's bio here.

Read an interview with Sider at Create Whimsy here.

Images are from the author's website.

Exploring Your Artistic Voice in Contemporary Quilt Art
by Sandra Sider
Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Pub Date 28 Jan 2020
112 pages 60 color images
ISBN: 9780764358876
$16.99 (USD) paperback

from the publisher:This compact guide will make a huge impact on how you choose to express yourself in quilt art. Think of the artists whose work you admire, individuals with a distinctive style or perhaps several styles developed over the years. You might like their use of color, materials, craft expertise, and subject matter. But above all, you recognize in these makers an authenticity, a confident approach to the quilt medium. That is their artistic voice. Develop your own unique artistic voice, see your work mature, and become confident and happy with what you are doing in the studio. Renowned quilt artist Sandra Sider acts as a companion along the path to discovering your voice, and offers photos of dozens of her own quilt design successes and failures as examples to learn from. Even blind alleys, detours, and the road not taken can lead to developing one’s voice as a quilt artist—indeed, as any sort of creative maker. Topics include how to write a powerful artist's statement for yourself, when to stop experimenting, and using your voice once you own it. Looking to broaden your quilting experience, or simply curious about the concept of an artistic voice? Look no further—this is the perfect guide for you!

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson was this month's book club pick. I enjoyed reading this book and found it interesting.  

I am not into fishing or fly tying, and although it is about the theft of rare feathers from a museum to be used in salmon fly tying, that's not the whole point of the book. What is fascinating is the obsessive aspect of fly tying and its roots in a crazy but popular 19th c writer who insisted that rare and beautiful birds needed to be harvested to create perfect flys to attract specific fish in specific streams.

The book also talks about the obsession for birds and feathers in 19th c fashion and how millions of birds were killed for the sake of their feathers.

This book is about obsession and the crazy things we become obsessed with. The obsession of a 19th c naturalist to collect rare birds. The obsession of a man who stole the rare birds from a museum, justifying his action. The obsession of the author who needed to understand the thief and to find what happened to all the birds.

And, there is the obsession of us readers who want to know how the story ends.

Most of our book club readers did not finish the book or were disappointed by the ending. Some parts interested others. One was emotionally upset by the killing of birds. It was the lack of an ending that gave closure that most disappointed the readers. Even if the 'mystery' was not solved, the 'truth' revealed, they wanted the author to offer something to wrap the story up. Two of us did enjoy the book.

I purchased an ebook.

Dreams Coming True: Theresa Nielsen and Her Children's Books

My quilt friend Theresa Nielsen is a woman of many talents. Along with creating crazy quilts such as one that was a finalist in the Grand Central Terminal Centennial Quilt Challenge sponsored by the City Quilter quilt shop in New York, she restores vintage quilts and makes quilts, dolls, and other items.

Theresa is also a writer and recently has published three children's books illustrated by Jake Goodgall. When Theresa puzzled over finding an illustrator for her books, young Jake quipped that if the books were for children they should be illustrated by a child!

First to come out was Pickles and Olive, in which an abandoned stuffed rabbit comforts a premature baby.

Mustard and Honey is the story of sibling frogs who frolic in a lily pond. Mustard likes to scare Honey but things take a happy turn on Honey's birthday.

Stormy and Cloudy don't appear until the end of the book bearing their names; a farmer and his wife are warned against bad weather by their cows, whose offspring are given the appropriate names.

The simple stories offer children an understanding of premature baby siblings, the love behind the teasing between siblings, and how relationships between people and animals are mutually beneficial.

Theresa has been talking about her books at libraries and other venues across Southeast Michigan. Her books are available at Amazon.com for $7.00 each. Her stories have appeared in several publications.

Theresa Nielson's Grand Central Centennial Quilt
read more at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/01/grand-central-terminal-centennial-quilt.html

Conversations with RBG by Jeffrey Rosen

I admit my knowledge and understanding of the Supreme Court is barely adequate, based mostly on headline news and gleanings from my readings in history and biographies.

With some trepidation, I proceeded to read Conversations with RBG, worried it would be 'over my head.'

I was immediately pleased to find Jeffrey Rosen's book was informative, with a good sense of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's personality and ideas about "life, love, liberty, and law," and yet accessible to a general reader like myself. Most of the cases discussed were quite well known, although in Rosen's chapter introductions there were references to cases outside of my knowledge.

Each chapter is a transcript of a conversation between Rosen and RBG that took place over time, focusing on one aspect of her life or career. The conversations consider landmark Supreme Court cases but also consider the present and future of the Court.

Rosen and RBG bonded over a shared love of opera. Classical music and opera are RBG's passion, bringing beauty, joy, and therapeutic escape into her workaholic life.

I appreciated learning about her early cases working with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's Rights Project.

RBG endeavored for laws that were neutral in regards to sex, so that men and women had the same, equal protections.

I think that men and women, shoulder to shoulder, will work together to make this a better world.~RBG quoted in Conversations with RBG

All the landmark cases are addressed from RBG's landmark cases to her dissenting votes. A very interesting chapter concerns RBG's meeting with Margaret Atwood. Also discussed is how RBG became a cultural icon, memorialized in opera and social media memes.

Rosen asked, "What's the worst ruling" the current Court has produced, and she answered Citizens United. "I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays fo far from what our democracy is supposed to be."

I read in the newspaper today that Virginia passed the Equal Rights Amendment, which RBG had supported. Last night I had read about Rosen asking if the ERA might be revived in correlation with the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment. RBG replied that because some states withdrew their ratification "it would be better to start over."

I appreciated RBG's philosophy of the court being "a reactive institution." She believes the Court should respect the legislative judgment of Congress.

RBG is hopeful, understanding that the American democratic experiment is an ever-evolving process.

"I am an originalist; I think we're constantly forming a more perfect Union, which is what the Founders intended. As bad as things may be, there are better than they once were. These are not the best of times, but think of how many bad time's I've experienced in my long lig.e Starting with the Second World War...then Senator Joe McCarthy...Then Vietnam. Somehow, we have gotten over the worst of times."~RBG in Conversations with RBG by Jeffrey Rosen

I won a free book from the publisher through LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.

Read an excerpt here.

Conversations with RBG
by Jeffrey Rosen
Henry Holt and Co.
Publication: 11/05/2019
hardcover $28
ISBN: 9781250235176