The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild

Art has become another kind of currency, a safer investment than cash. Up for auction is a painting that has been missing for twenty years, a painting with a biography and history, a website, a motion picture contract, and collectors of all kinds are vying for top bidder. They are not art lovers, per say, although the painting affects its viewer with peculiar effect. It is a beautiful parable of the nature of love, how love makes fools of men. The Improbability of Love was Antoine Watteau's paean to his first love, then repainted as a critique of love's improbability.

Hannah Rothchild's novel The Improbability of Love is hard to classify. Is it a drama, a mystery, a Holocaust novel, a romance, a satire? It is always a book about art, art as truth telling and as beauty, and the value of art socially and financially.

There is the human drama and romance angle. The heroine Annie buys a painting for a lover who dumps her. She is being pushed to check its provenance. It may be the real deal, a painting worth big bucks. But Annie is more interesting in getting her alcoholic mom out of her life and establishing a career as a chief. She works for the prestigious and powerful Winkleman family, premier art dealers. Meantime artist Jesse is enamored with Annie and hopes that by helping her he'll be there when she is willing to trust love again.

Memling Winkleman has been searching for the painting, once in his possession but lost when he gave it to his lover. His daughter Rebbecca suspects Annie has the painting. Eventually Rebbecca tracks down how the painting came into her family's possession and learns shocking truths, so horrific when her older brother discovered them he disappeared from an ocean liner.

The art world is seen through a critical eye in all it's absurdities, the sellers and buyers of power and wealth for whom art is a commodity. Social satire abounds in Rothchild's treatment of them.

The twist takes us into Nazi Germany and the sacking of art treasures from across Europe, and the mystery of where it all ended up.

Art lovers will enjoy being in the know as artist's names are dropped throughout the book. The painting speaks for itself in the story; it is quite prideful about its long list of stellar owners from the courts of Europe. It has ideas about how it should be treated.

The Anxious Lover 

I enjoyed the book and halfway through was motivated to keep going. It was unexpected to go from a chapter of humor to a dark chapter. The ending was too neatly wrapped up, told by the painting. I felt it kept the reader distant from Annie's story. But it was not Annie's story. It was really the story of The Improbability of Love.

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

The Improbability of Love
Hannah Rothschild
Knopf
Publication Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 9781101874141
$27.95 hard cover

Reviews:

'I am head over heels in love with this book. Every page is a joy. It's funny, sad, profound. The writing dances. It has panache. It's beautifully structured. It wears its scholarship with a balletic lightness and grace that shadows the Rococo painting at its heart. Its many and varied characters are an exquisite joy...What more can I say? It's my Book of the Year already.¹ BARBARA TRAPIDO

"THE IMPROBABILITY OF LOVE is a romp, a joy, and an inspired feast of clever delights. Reading this book is like a raid on a high-end pastry shop ‹ you marvel at the expertise and cunning of the creations, while never wanting the deliciousness to end." ­ ELIZABETH GILBERT

"Satirical, provocative, and exceedingly humorous, this novel mocks today's art world. A new twist: the leading painting speaks, gossiping about its previous owners. Rothschild delights us with glimpses of London life--as louche, chic, and freakish as early Evelyn Waugh. JOHN RICHARDSON

Pierrot

The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel by Margaret A. Oppenehimer

The tale of a young man rising from rags to riches is well known. For a woman to rise in society and in fortune there was only one way: through a man.

Betsy Bowen was born to a teenage mother in 1775. She was raised in a brothel, indentured, and confined to a workhouse while her mother was jailed. In 1803 she moved and changed her name to Eliza Brown.

She was an occasional extra in the theater when she met wealthy businessman Stephen Jumel and became his mistress. Betsy had drive and intelligence. She knew Jumel loved her and she manipulated him into marriage by claiming she was on the brink of death and concerned for her soul.

Jumel took Eliza to his native land of France. She educated herself to seamlessly fit into French society, teaching herself French through reading. Her intelligence and beauty was celebrated. She collected art and European treasures to outfit her American home. Eliza helped Jumel amass real estate and a fortune. She returned to America to manage Jumel's American assets. They lived apart for four years, during which time Eliza ensured her future financial status.

The Jumel family mansion. 

Read more about the Morris-Jumel mansion here.

After her husband's death, Eliza Jumel was the wealthiest woman in America. She was courted by the financially insolvent ex-Vice President Arron Burr who pressured her into marriage. She soon learned he only wanted her money and divorced him on (justified) grounds of adultery.

She continued to protect her fortune using all means, including lies and trickery to disinherit Jumel's family. After her death at 92 years of age, Jumel heirs fought for control of the wealth for years. Scandalous accusations were flung about the courtrooms, dismantling the respectability Eliza had worked so hard to achieve.

How Eliza changed her own story using every device in her power is fascinating to read. You won't always like her, but you have to admire the woman who defied the odds to become the legend she created in the New York Times obituary of her.

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

The Remarkable Rise of Eliza Jumel: A Story of Marriage and Money in the Early Republic
by Margaret A. Oppenheimer
Chicago Review Press
Publication Date: November 1, 2015
ISBN: 9781613733806
$29.95 hard cover

Glimpses into Young Genius: The Early Stories of Truman Capote

The Early Stories of Truman Capote
Penguin Random House
Publication October 27, 2015
$25.00 hard cover
ISBN: 9780812998221

These fourteen stories were written during Capote's teenage years. They are brief snippets with memorable and vivid characters. It is amazing to realize that at fourteen or seventeen Capote had already discovered his voice and displayed an understanding of human nature.

The stories are about boys who enter the woods in search of an escaped convict and a school girl wracked with jealousy and spite; a frightened woman who unwittingly sends an escaped mad woman to her doom and a boy who falls in love with a dog whose boy is ill; a jaded older tramp who has a change of heart regarding his idealistic and younger companion on the road and a woman who saves a snake-bit child regardless of her own safety; a Southern African American cook goes to New York City and is homesick for the South, despite its Jim Crow laws. The characters are caught at turning points and crisis points, revealing truths about human nature.

This collection is noted as of interest to readers wanting to understand the writer and his maturing craft. But readers will find enough interest in the stories on their own.

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

Robin Goodfellow's Pranks on Hallowe'en

Robin Goodfellow's Pranks on Hallowe-en

When little boys on Hallowe'en are up to some sly trick,

I hearken to their whispered plans and silently and quick,

A mischief laughing to myself, right after them I hop

And scare them 'most to death by changing to a cop.

And next I am the Goblin's screech-owl, shrieking awful loud,

Ar rise right up before their eyes, a ghost with long white shroud;

When brimstone blazes from my eyes they see a big black cat,

And home at last I chase them, a witch with peaked hat.

from A Year with the Fairies by Anna M. Scott, 1924

Brand Luther: Marketing the Reformation

For years the newfangled printing press was only utilized by the church, for the church. Small local publishers turned out books in Latin that had little in common with what we expect in a book today, like consistent and grammatically correct word breaks. 

The development of the book as we know it was due to Lucas Cranach who created title pages with decorative elements,with the author's name prominently displayed. And he developed this format for his friend, Martin Luther, best-selling writer of the early 1500s.

Andrew Pettegree's title tells the whole story: Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe--and Started the Protestant Reformation. The book tells the stories of a monk turned best-selling author, a one-customer book industry that found an explosive new market, and how a small town became a boom town.

I learned in my Reformation History course that Luther was a Cultural Icon, a mass-media guru who used the latest technology--and gasp, even wrote in the vernacular so non-clerics could read theology and the Bible! 

In 1513 when Luther arrived in Wittenberg he though it was a small. ugly village on the edge of civilization. Even the rival of Luther's Patron remarked, "That a single monk, out of such a hole, could undertake a Reformation, is not to be tolerated." The university printing press was the only operation in town, and its printer slow and his book inelegant. By 1543 there were six shops turning out about 90 books a year. Luther single-handedly changed the book business. How the printing industry and the Reformation were intertwined is at the heart of this book

Pettegree has a readable style and his presentation of the history and theology was not difficult to follow. Although not a biography of Luther, or a study in Reformation history, the reader will learn a great deal about both. 

Included in the book are illustrations, including the books discussed, and portraits of Luther by Cranach.

1541 Bible translated by Martin Luther, design by Lucas Cranach

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

Brand Luther: How an Unheralded Monk Turned His Small Town into a Center of Publishing, Made Himself the Most Famous Man in Europe--and Started the Protestant Reformation 

Andrew Pettegree

Penguin Press

Publication Date October 27, 2015

ISBN:9781594204968

$29.95 hard cover

400 pages

The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro

"Shapiro effectively shows how the beliefs, fears, and politics of Shakespeare’s day were reflected in his plays. Highly recommended for readers interested in Shakespeare or British History."

– Library Journal

1606 was an eventful year in the history of England. King James, son of Queen Mary of Scotland, was on the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth. The kingdom struggled with what it meant to have a king who ruled both England and Scotland. England's Anti-Catholic repression spurred a rebellion, the Gunpowder Plot, foiled at the last minute. All of England was shaken knowing how close they were to the destruction of government and most of London. It spurred and enforced Anti-Catholic legislation and a search for closeted Catholics, who had a pamphlet on how to 'equivocate' to sidestep direct questioning. Plus, the reoccurring Plague took its toll and closed the theaters and demon possession took even the king's interest.

Forty-two-year-old William Shakespeare had been in a lull for several years. He wasn't publishing his new plays and few of his old ones were available at the bookstalls. He wasn't appearing on stage consistently. He was a ripe old age (for those days) and he had amassed enough money to retire. Were his most productive days behind him?

Not at all. For in 1606 Shakespeare finished his masterpiece King Lear and wrote Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra.

James Shapiro's book Year of Lear links these three plays to the events of 1606, showing how Shakespeare used buzzwords, current events, and the fears and concerns of his time. Because there is so little information about Shakespeare's life and thought, it is Shapiro's deep knowledge of the plays that enable him to link them to their times. His exploration of King Lear is most successful and of the greatest interest. Readers learn about Shakespeare's sources, how he altered and improved the stories, when they were acted, and about changes made over time. While King James quested for Union, Shakespeare wrote about a king who divided his kingdom with dire consequences.

I am no Shakespeare scholar, and knew only the basics about the Gunpowder Plot and Anti-Catholic repression. I studied King Lear three times during the course of my education, but never have read Antony and Cleopatra. I found the book very interesting and accessible, and I enjoyed it very much.

Read an interview with the author at folger.edu.

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

The Year of Lear
James Shapiro
Simon & Schuster
Publication Oct 6, 2015
$30 hard cover
ISBN 9781416541646

Binding With a Flange from Caroline's Sewing Room

Caroline's Sewing Room in West Branch, MI demonstrated how to bind with a flange during the annual Quilt Walk the first weekend of October. The flange is incorporated into the binding process and gives the impression of a narrow border.

The instructions involve cutting two strips of fabric, 1 1/2" wide for the binding strip and 1 3/4" wide for the flange strip. (Use mitered seams to connect the strips to make the lengths needed for your project.) The binding strips are sewn together right sides together along the long sides.

The strips are then turned wrong sides together and pressed even at the open edge; the flange fabric will show 1/8" at the folded edge.

The binding is sewn to the back of the quilt with the flange fabric up, then folded to the front of the quilt. The binding is machine sewn with matching threads.

 Below: Back of the quilt with binding sewn on.

 Below: Front of the quilt with binding sewn on.

Below the binding is being sewn on. You can see the binding back matches the border/backing fabric of the project and the flange is in the contrasting lighter fabric.

The mitered corners will need to be hand sewn.

 

It makes a great effect. I am eager to try it out on some small quilt projects and think it would be great for art quilts.