Books to Come

What I am reading now:

Historical fiction set during the Revolutionary War

Historical fiction imagining the inner life of Virginia Wool

Scheduled for May are book reviews for

On my shelf to be read:

Dickens Quilting Progressing; Upcoming Book Reviews

I am trying to work more on hand quilting my Charles Dickens quilt. I have been taking it to my Tuesday quilters gathering.

In the next month many book reviews will be shared:

Songs of Sorrow by Samuel Charters, about Lucy McKim Garrison, early collector of Slave Songs

Abe & Fido by Mathew Algeo about Lincoln's relationship to animals, especially his dog

Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon about Mary Wollestonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley

The Children's Crusade by Anne Packer, a highly anticipated family drama

Children of the Stone by Sandy Tolan, how music changed the life of Ramallah refugees

The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl, fiction about book thieves planning to steal a manuscript from Robert Louis Stevenson at his tropical island home

Recycled Hexi Quilts by Mary Kerr, using vintage quilts in making new quilts

Where Monsters Lurk: Sara Gruen's At The Water's Edge

In January, 1945 while most families pray for the safety of menfolk at war, Madeline (Maddie), her husband Ellis (heir to his mother's Wanamaker fortune) and his best friend Hank scandalize Philadelphia society with their drunken antics. (Think Scott and Zelda.)

Madeline's distant father was a wealthy 'entrepreneur who dabbled in burlesque' and her manipulative mother a famed beauty and vaudeville star. Her grandfather was a Tammany Hall connected robber baron. She is not considered a proper marriage choice by her in-laws.

Ellis's father finally turns his son out of his Rittenhouse Square mansion. Unable to face hotel life, Ellis wants to regain his father's approval. His grandfather had photographed a loch monster, later labeled a hoax. Ellis decides to reclaim the family's good name by proving the monster is real. He takes Madeline and Hank on a dangerous war time journey across the Atlantic to Scotland.

Madeline has been insulated from the grim reality of the war until their the ship takes on survivors from a bombed military ship. The confrontation with burned and blasted bodies begins her moral wakening.

Drumnadrochit is a dismal place and the inn primitive. The locals have no fond memory of Ellis's grandfather. Ellis is superior and disdainful, Hank is a charming rake. Madeline tries to keep her dually-addicted husband happy. He is a mean drunk. As his behavior alienates Madeline he realizes he needs a way to control her--and her money.

While Ellis and Hank chase after the elusive monster, disappearing for days at a time (with the rationing books) only to return drunk, Madeline must fend for herself. To keep busy and 'earn her keep' she learns how to assist the staff in the most basic tasks until she becomes accepted as 'Maddie'. She comes to admire the manager, Angus, who was badly scarred in the war but is vigorous and fearless. His back story of loss becomes central to the plot and the fantasy element.

At The Water's Edge is at heart a historical romance--with elements of Gothic and fantasy. The focus is on Maddie's coming of age, learning that there are monsters hiding in plain sight, discovering her capacity for self determination, and encountering true love. The book sweeps the reader along with plenty of plot interest. (Perhaps too much plot interest.) The women are better portrayed than the men.

Warning: there are sexual encounters and brutality against women. The relationship between Ellis and Hank is not spelled out, but there are cloaked references to their being be gay lovers.

Daily life in wartime Scotland was nicely portrayed with rationing, black out shades, air raid shelters and gas masks. I was curious about the air attacks described in the book. I had not known that Scotland was bombed by the Germans. It turns out there were 500 air raids on Scotland.

http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/20thand21stcenturies/worldwarii/index.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotlands_blitz/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/scotlands_blitz/
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/new-book-lifts-lid-on-why-scotland-1053065

I find it interesting how many books are coming out set during WWII, particularly in the romance/Women's fiction genre.

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

At The Water's Edge
Sara Gruen
Random House
ISBN: 9780385523233
$28.00 hard cover
Publication March 31, 2015

Remember This? Part II: 1965

The March 1965 issue of Woman's Day was likely laying on the coffee table in my childhood home fifty years ago. It's no wonder I love the advertising artwork and feel comfortable with the trends. There was a great article on new hair styles with diagrams for cutting and rollers.

We wore 'falls' to achieve this 'new' hairstyle:

 It reminds me of Meghan in Mad Men. I sure remember wearing a scarf or headband with this look.

 Oh, those rollers! I had slept in large ones and I don't know how I did it.

No one can forget those iconic Breck Girls. 

 

Basements were being tricked out for youth parties. That bright pink wall color is unbelievable.

'Early American decorating' was undergoing a 'tweak'. The painted furniture reminds me of today's trends. 

 There were ads for home sewers.

 And patterns for spring suites in spring colors.

 Embroidered pillow patterns.

I never heard of "Frank Fritters." I guess they didn't catch on in my part of the country.

Nor did Mom ever make me a Jelly Stack.

 I do love 1960s art. These two were pics in a pullout section of recipes.

 I will spare you the Brains Barbizon recipe.

Bermuda Casserole

• 4 Bermuda onions cut in 1/4" slices
• 6 slices day old bread
• 1 cu finely crimbled blue cheese
• 1 cup undiluted evaporated milk or light cream
• 3 beaten eggs
• salt
• hot pepper sauce
• butter
• paprika

Parboil onion slices for 10 minutes. Trim crusts from bread and cut bread into small squares. Butter a shallow 1 1.2 quart baking dish. Put onion in dish and cover with bread squares. Sprinkle with the cheese. Mix milk and eggs and season with salt and hot pepper sauce. Pour over ingredients in baking dish. Dot with butter and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes. Serves 6.

And these illustrated a page on Potato dishes from Finland.

Pyttipannu

• Cold cooked potatos
• onions
• fat
• mean leftovers
• sliced cooked sausages
• cucumber pickles
• apples
• grated Cheddar cheese

Chop all the ingredients, but cheese, into 1" cubes. Saute the onion in a small amount of fat until golden. Add the other ingredients and sate until golden. Before serving sprinkle the dish with grated cheese. Serve with fried eggs and ketchup.

 A shared advise column called Neighbors has this lovely tea illustration. Mary Weberg of Paulina, OR suggested keeping a blank recipe file card in one's purse. When you want a friend's recipe you hand it to them.

"When you use a recipe, of course you think of the person who gave it to you and the occasion of the giving."

An article on Georgetown was illustrated in line art. The original pages were pink!

An advertisement for Bell Telephone.

 This is a sweet illustration for a three column article on March gardening.

 Note the pill box hat on the beauty counselor. I never heard of this business.

Yowser! There were theater reviews in this woman's magazine! The Subject was Roses on Broadway starred Irene Dailey, Martin Sheen and Jack Albertson. The review by Hollis Alpert went on a whole page after this page:

Oh, my! I am feeling pretty old. I should follow Margret Merril's advice and damp a cloth in lemon jelvyn freshener and press over my face, lie back and let the lemon tone and refine my skin. Followed up with oil of olay I will have a day-long dewy look.

Can Reading Shakespeare Change Lives?

"Shakespeare Saved My Life."

The title of Dr. Laura Bate's book is a quote by a prisoner in super maximum security. Dr. Bates volunteered to teach Shakespeare to prisoners.

The students were taken to private cells with small openings. They knelt on the cement floor and spoke through the opening to join the discussion. One student, Larry Newton, was convicted for life without parole for his participation in a murder, Newton had survived years in isolation.

Although Newton's education was sketchy and incomplete, he excelled at connecting the plays to his experiences. The plays made him confront his own actions and gave him a feeling of power over his thoughts and actions. He found self esteem and a reason to live.

"Prison is being entrapped by those self-destructive ways of thinking."

"Everyone puts themselves into so many prisons."

--Larry Newton

Newton became a teacher himself, writing curriculum and plays for at-risk teens and prisoners.

"The idea is not to give the the answers, but to make them question."--Larry Newton

The prisoners were eager to participate in the program. They told Bates that by delving into the plays they were confronted their own decisions and thoughts. One prisoner admitted that the plays had saved lives--two.

A prisoner in the Shakespeare program was also a quilter and made Bates a quilt: 228 squares of black, white, and denim cloth. The black and white photograph in the book shows medallion style quilt with four printed bandannas in the center. It was surrounded by borders of squares in a checked pattern, and set with four more bandannas in the outside corners of the quilt. It is 6 feet by six feet according to Bates.

The prisoners who participated in both the Shakespeare program and the quilting group recited Shakespearean text while sewing, entertaining the other quilters and memorizing lines. The quilts were donated to charitable causes, including battered women's shelters and the families of deceased veterans. The quilts had been in the Indiana state fair and in the news.

The book is the choice of OverDrive's first Big Library Read, a global ebook club. The e-book can be downloaded for free between March 17 through March 31. Read about it at http://biglibraryread.com/

See Dr Bates on this news story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JNobjeLjU

National Geographic's Innovators includes Dr. Bates in this story with photos
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140428-innovator-laura-bates-prisons-solitary-confinement-shakespeare/

"He said he'd been through all sorts of programs in prison, and nothing worked. But Shakespeare did. Why? Because all those other programs start with the premise that you're broken and need to be fixed—need to become another person. Shakespeare starts with the premise that you're not broken if you can handle the language and grapple with the issues. Once you do, you can start to get past whatever personas you've been hiding behind and examine who you really are."

The Reading Group Guide on the OverDrive website poses questions about the prison system, rehabilitation, and the impact of teachers. Then things get personal.

• What 'prisons' of habitual patterns are we caught in? 
• How would we react to the situations described in the book? 
• What Shakespeare plays you have read and can you discover personal relevance in the four-hundred-year-old text? 
• What are your personal prisons--and how can you overcome them?

To read an excerpt of the book check out
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/23/shakespeare-saved-my-life-excerpt-_n_3133831.html?

The book is compelling to read and often it is moving and hard to read. Dr. Bates does not put forward judgment on the prison system or about the rehabilitation of Larry Newton. Reading about Newton's background and experience growing up I did feel upset that he had been failed by society, and felt that his treatment in juvenile corrections was harsh and unhelpful.

Dr. Bate's work engages the prisoners who truly struggle with the text and how it applies to their own lives. It appears that because of their experiences the prisoners gain deeper insight into the plays than most college students coming from a more protected and supportive background.

I enjoyed my classwork in Shakespeare and have enjoyed seeing his plays in adulthood. My high school teacher made King Lear understandable to me, and I also covered that play in two different college courses. I learned that one should not give away power thinking that those who gain it will keep your best interests at heart. In other courses we read Hamlet, Henry V Part I and II, A Winter's Tale, The Tempest, as well as having read Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Cesar in high school classes. How has Shakespeare been relevant to my life? I haven't been as impacted as Larry Newton has been. I feel poorer in comparison.

I cannot imagine entering a prison as a volunteer. As a quilter, reading about a quilting group in prison sends chills up my spine. We work with scissors and needles and pins! Small objects that could be used as weapons, easily hid away. Dr. Bates grew up in a tough neighborhood, a child of immigrants, and was was not afraid of the men. She was careful and thoughtful, dressing drably and keeping relationships on a professional level.

As a book for discussion Shakespeare Saved My Life would excel. The comments left on the OverDrive website are varied and diverse.

I would not have discovered this book without the OverDrive promotion. I am glad I read it and I look forward to the next Big Library Read.