Irish Pixies vs Hillbilly Pixies

Some years ago I came across a quilt being sold on eBay with a pattern I later recognized in a 1973 copy of Blue Ribbon Quilts Patterns by Ruby Hinson. These Hillbilly Pixies had funny faces with hillbilly hats and were meant for applique and embroidery.

Recently a friend had an old Quilt World magazine with Irish Pixies. The idea is the same, just tweaked. The setting was even the same as the 1973 pattern.

The Irish Pixies have buckled hats and are all smoking a pipe.

The faces include funny expressions.

Here are the eBay quilt and sample pages of the Hillbilly Pixies pattern. The hats are appliqued and the rest of the details are embroidered.

So even a seemingly original idea has several interpretations! The Hillbilly Pixies all have antenna while all the Irish Elves have pipes.

Perhaps by 1986 Hillbilly was considered a negative stereotype and the pattern morphed into an Irish elf. According to Wikipedia,

The "classic" hillbilly stereotype reached its current characterization during the years of the Great Depression when many mountaineers left their homes to find work in other areas of the country. The period of Appalachian out-migration, roughly from the 1930s through the 1950s, saw many mountain residents moving North to the Midwestern industrial cities of Chicago, Cleveland, Akron and Detroit. This movement North became known as the "Hillbilly Highway." The movement brought these previously isolated communities into mainstream United States culture. Poor white mountaineers became central characters in newspapers, pamphlets and eventually, motion pictures. Authors at this time were inspired by historical figures such as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. The mountaineer image transferred over to the 20th century where the "hillbilly" stereotype emerged.[4]

See all of the Hillbilly Pixies patterns at
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/hillbilly-pixies-quilt-pattern.html

Exposed by Lisa Scottoline

Mary DiNunzio comes from an Italian South Philly family and her loyalty to her neighbors is fierce. When the son of one of her dad's best friends comes to her needing representation, she had to accept the case, even if a conflict of interest means she has to give up her new partnership with Bennie Rosato in a top law firm.

As Bennie and Mary try to hash out the legal aspects of representing businesses owned by the same parent company, Mary's client Simon is not only fighting being wrongfully fired from his job, his daughter is in the Children's Hospital battling leukemia.

Simon does not know that he has inadvertently revealed a fatal design flaw in his company's product, and there are people willing to do anything to protect themselves.

I always love a DiNunzio book; she is a character with heart and a dedication to those she loves. In Exposed she makes hard choices, she and Bennie suffer horribly, but the book ends with joyful news.

Scottoline always has a nice quick read to offer, and this legal thriller does not disappoint. The last half kept me turning pages. And besides, I love that Simon graduated from Temple University-my alma mater!

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

Exposed
Lisa Scottline
St Martin's Press
Publication August 15, 2017
$27 hard cover
ISBN: 9781250099716

The World Broke in Two: 1922, The Year that Changed Literature

Willa Cather pronounced that 'the world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts'. WWI had been one of the most devastating conflicts in world history, leaving 41 million dead. Those who survived combat returned home wounded in body and soul and mind. Vast stretches of Europe had been turned into a wasteland, leaving millions of refugees. The Victorian world view and values were irrelevant and archaic. A new world view was arising from the ashes.

The World Broke in Two by Bill Goldstein presents the personal and artistic struggles of  T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, and D. H. Lawrence to create literature that spoke to this changed world.

James Joyce's Ulysses and the newly translated In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust were the literary sensations of the day. T. S. Eliot was a huge promoter of Joyce's book, which Lawrence found unreadable. Proust was a huge influence on Woolf, as was Eliot's poem The Waste Land which he had read aloud at her home. Forster was inspired by Proust. Each writer was searching for a new voice and vision.

"Well--what remains to be written after that?" Virginia Woolf after reading Proust in 1922

The authors' personal lives were a mess.

Eliot suffered a nervous breakdown and had an ill wife. He could not seem to let go of his poem The Wasteland and strung publishers along. He wore green tinted makeup to appear even more pathetic.

It had been years since Forster's last published novel. He lived with his smothering mother and was sexually frustrated, longing for love. He escaped by taking a position in India. He fell in love with a younger, married man who played the lovestruck Forster. And then the man died. Forster was in grief, unable to finish what was to become his last novel, A Passage to India.

Woolf was ill much of the year. She was trying to find a voice and style that was new. Mrs. Dalloway started as a minor character but was growing into her own novel. Goldstein writes that Joyce, Proust, and Eliot seemed to raise the question: "What connects it together?" Woolf sought to find "some sort of fusion" that was missing in Ulysses and The Waste Land.

And Lawrence continued to wander the world with Frieda, his novels banned as obscene. They had left England in 1917, going to Australia, and then America. Invited to live in Taos, he determined to write an "American novel from that centre."

The Waste Land was finally published late in the year, and a monetary prize was given to Eliot. He left his bank job to work for the publisher that became Faber and Faber. Forster's novel A Passage To India was published in 1924, dedicated to his beloved, and became a best seller. Lawrence published Aaron's Rod in 1922 and his Australian novel Kangaroo the following year. He became financially comfortable. Woolf's story Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street was published in 1923 and her novel Mrs. Dalloway in 1925.

My first Forster book was A Passage to India. I discovered Eliot in my late teens. Woolf was a later happy discovery; I have also read several books about her life. Although I have not read Lawrence's novels I have enjoyed his stories and poetry. And, in college, I had an honors course on Joyce's Ulysses.With this background, I was very interested in learning about the relationship between these writers and how they were inspired by Joyce and Proust.

I had not realized how much of Eliot's personal life can be found in The Wasteland, including clips of conversations. The oppression felt in the poem was very personal, rooted in his private life, as well as influenced by his contemporary world. Forster, Woolf, and Eliot suffered from depression and were emotionally fragile. Poor Forster, unable to be open about his sexual orientation, writing about love between men and women and longing for a fulfilling adult love of his own.

A reviewer I read said she would not want to spend time with any of these writers. I found that sad. I am amazed to think what these authors accomplished considering the burdens they labored under, Eliot working in a dull office job, his loveless marriage and ill wife; lonely Forster staying with his overbearing mother; Woolf fighting depression; Lawrence driven from place to place with Frieda. All having seen a devastating war upend everything that seemed permanent.

I found Goldstein's book an interesting read both as biography and as an examination of an important moment in literature.

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

The World Broke in Two: Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and the Year that Changed Literature
by Bill Goldstein
Henry Holt and Company
Publication: August 15, 2017
Hard cover $30
ISBN: 9780805094022

Interlude: Saying Goodbye to Philadelphia

The view from the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps
down the Ben Franklin Parkway towards Center City

A week before we moved from Philadelphia I spent a day alone at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was where I had fallen in love with the city back when we first came to Philly for Gary to interview with the Eastern PA Conference.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art
with the Schuylkill River and Water Works
Bicentennial era pamphlet

I stood on the steps of the art museum, looking past the Washington Monument fountain down the Ben Franklin Parkway to the Second Empire City Hall. Behind me in the art museum was "Sandy" Calder's mobile Ghost, at the far end of the parkway was Alexander Stirling Calder's Swann Memorial Fountain, and atop City Hall was Alexander Milne Calder's William Penn: three generations.

detail from a lithograph of Philadelphia

Philadelphia as we knew it when we moved

I recalled my first views of the city, coming in on the expressway along the Schuylkill. Across the ravine was the strange sight of Laurel Hill Cemetery, the white monuments gleaming.

Then came the view of the art museum and the water works in front of it. Going down the Ben Franklin Parkway, bedecked with flags, past fountain circles, and ending with the imposing City Hall. I knew my ancestors had come into this port, and that in some way I was coming home.

Rodin's The Thinker at the Rodin Museum on the Ben Franklin Parkway

Our first anniversary after moving to Philly we went to Old Original Bookbinders for our first lobster dinner. They put a plastic bib on our necks. The lobster was amazing, dipped in butter, and so rich.

Ads including Old Original bookbinders
Saladalley was one of my clients when I was in sales

One birthday I ordered poached salmon with dill sauce at The Fish Market

The Fish Market 

We shopped at the Reading Terminal Market where we bought fresh vegetables and whole fish, boned leg of lamb to grill, and home made cottage cheese.

Reading Terminal. Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

We had our first Tabouli at a lunch stand in the Reading Terminal Market. I felt vindicated for always eating the spring of parsley from my parent's plate at restaurants. Here was a whole salad of parsley! We now grow our own parsley to make this salad.

Ad for the Reading Terminal Market
Bicentennial pamphlet

Reading Terminal. Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

We went to the Old City festival and bought exotic foods from the Middle East restaurant and Indian food from Siva, some of our favorite cuisines to this day. We loved to eat in Chinatown, where we had Peking Duck. We enjoyed chicken mole' and authentic dishes at a Mexican restaurant that opened near the Academy of Music.

restaurant ads in Bicentennial pamphlet

We had dined at Dicken's Inn, run by Charles Dicken's grandson, and took my brother for Cajun food at an expensive restaurant on South Street. I accidentally ordered raw oysters while dining on the Moshulu, and Gary and I each tried one.

It was during the Avenue of the Arts on Broad street that I heard an orchestra play Vivaldi's The Four Seasons for the first time. Under a huge tent along the Delaware River at Penn's Landing at a free concert, we sang along with Pete Seeger, "Bit by bit, row by row, gonna make my garden grow."

We had gone to the Mummer's Parade on New Years Day, crushed in a crowd of thousands on South Broad Street. We heard the Beach Boys in a free concert on the steps of the art museum on a muggy July 4th.

I had stood in light-filled Christ Church where our patriot forefathers worshipped and supped by candlelight in the City Tavern where they broke bread.

Bicentennial Ads

We had seen the St. Lucia festival at Gloria Dei, the earliest church in Philadelphia when it was first settled by Swedes. I had worshipped at Arch Street Meeting House and in African American churches.

We had seen plays--from Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead to Dracula: A Pain in the Neck; George Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare; Jean Marsh in Too Good to Be True and Leonard Nimoy in a one man play about Vincent Van Gogh. We had seen Cats on Broadway and Candide at the New York City Opera.

And the concerts at the Academy of Music! The Christmas ballets of The Nutcracker and Coppelia. The outdoor concerts at the Robin Hood Dell and Mann Music Center. I remembered the cooling dusk, sitting on a blanket on the grass, transported by Scheherazade, white dining on brie and fruit and wine.

Riccardo Muti

We saw repertoire movies including the first time I saw Limelight and City Lights by Charles Chaplin, and Casablanca, and The Marx Brothers. We went to the Ritz and saw foreign movies with subtitles, and to the large downtown theaters for the re-release of Lawrence of Arabia and the premieres of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future.

The Liberty Bell in it Bicentennial location

I recalled the Bicentennial, history come alive for a whole year, the museums and free plays, the excitement and uplifting belief in America.

Scenes from around Philadelphia in a Bicentennial pamphlet

Goodbye to the many public statues: Emmanuel Frémiet's gilded Joan of Arc, Robert Indiana's LOVE statue and Claus Oldenburg's giant 'clothespin statue' that looked like lovers kissing, and the Lipchitz statue Government of the People which some thought looked like a pile of shit, and Henry Moore's Three-Way Piece. and the Pilgrim and Playing Angels and even the giant frog. Goodbye to one of only two statues ever made of Charles Dickens.

Dickens and Little Nell by Francis Edwin Elwell. Clark Park, Philadelphia
Photo by Gary L. Bekofske

Goodbye, walks along the Schuylkill where Thomas Eakins painted the scullers. Goodbye, Independence Hall and Carpenters Hall, to the second bank of the United States modeled on the Parthenon, to the Bourse and the Merchant's Exchange. Goodbye to Latrobe's Water Works and to Boathouse Row.

Goodbye to being surrounded by history, to walking past where Phillips Brooks wrote 'O, Little Town of Bethlehem,' the Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman Houses, Ben Franklin's grave and the first library which he founded. Goodbye to the 18th c houses and Elfreth Alley and New Market.

Goodbye to the 30th Street Train Station, place of the opening scene of Witness, and to John Wanamaker where a car drove into the display window in the movie Mannequin. I only have to watch Blow Out or Trading Places to revisit the city we knew.

Bicentennial ad for Wanamaker

And the shopping! The department stores, now gone: John Wanamaker, Strawbridge & Clothier, Gimbels, and Lit Brothers. The new Gallery and Gallery II. And Encore Books where I bought so many books for so few dollars.

The Gallery and John Wanamaker

We had gone to the amazing Philadelphia Flower Show and to Longwood Gardens.

At Longwood Gardens

And to the Tyler Arboretum and the Ambler Arboretum. And to the Tinicum Nature Preserve to see the migrating birds, where once we saw thousands of white egrets in the trees.

Tinicum Nature Preserve

Specters

A cluster of trees

            jade green fans brush-stroked against

            blue skies dappled with pearly gray clouds

stood lit by a noon-high sun.

Vivid and verdant, richness of growth,

nature's masterwork swathed in movement:

White flight checkering green 

like phantoms

or gathered angels.

Souls in gala celebration

saluting the season.

Egrets, white flames 

Leaping from cool still green,

darting from depths of green

into shadows of green.

Hovering, alighting.

Eternity's crown,

nimbus of elms.

The miracle of flight

visiting the permanence of roots.

It was where I finished my education. I remembered Professor Olshin who taught the Jane Austen seminar and how we were on campus and ran into her and within a year she had died of the cancer she had been battling.

photo by Gary L. Bekofske of Kensington. 

How many hours had I spent on mass transit? The subway and the El? Going to school, work, to shop, and for days spent walking around the city?

the new subway station

I said goodbye to the city that formed my twenties and was the background of my adulthood.

View of the Ben Franklin Parkway from the top
of City Hall

My footsteps echoed as I walked up the stairs under Augustus Saint-Gaudens's Diana with her bow and arrow to visit my favorite art: Fish Magic by Paul Klee. Carnival Evening by Rousseau. John Singer Sargent's Luxembourg Gardens. Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/44513.html?mulR=1263678720|8

I remembered when we brought Chris to the museum and how he was so interested in Salvador Dali's Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) and having to explain it to an eighteen-month-old.

I returned home to Gary and Chris, excited for the next big adventure waiting for us, but knowing that Philadelphia had left its mark on me.

Views of the City

I saw your familiar yet unnamed face
flicker across the movie screen’s blank stare
and every image burned with recollected stain
the wall-writings, the liter,
the detached reflected city streets
in the towered window’s glare.

Remembered
diesel perfume and urine-soaked stair,
the rapid rush of walkers
going somewhere, anywhere,
with intense vengeance.
The panhandler’s challenge, the derelict’s sleep
on steamy subway grate, the wind
whipping down manufactured canyons
with a whirlwind of refuse.

And yet among all this came creeping
the quiet vacuum
where small things took root:
the flower of a fountain,
the square of sycamore where a child played,
the balanced architecture of a hopeful past,
violin strings slicing air,
you were also this, and more----

A dreamed, racial memory,
the place where my ancestors first came ashore,
when baffled, tongueless, full of faith
they sought new life in a foreign place.

Recalled, my first view of you,
driving down the river’s gorge,
your ancient dead saluting on the far hill,
gleaming white in spring’s green leaves;
passing Eakin’s famous bridge,
turning our eyes to the temple
rising over falling water
where I would learn to worship
the craft of  human hands
and mortal imagination.

Distancing the parkway,
flag-full and fountain-embraced,
until reaching  your heartbeat,
the clash of ages
where generations of Calders and Rouse meet.
In that disconsonance, I knew
I’d returned to the home
I’d always dreamt I’d find.

I gave you my best years.
And you, you stamped your imprint
on my most tender and childish being.
Here I viewed the extremes humanity can achieve:
where the lame led the blind,
and the powerful bomb the children of the disinherited,
and subway tunnels echo with solemn saxophone  songs,
and shop windows beckon entrance
into organ-filled halls.
I memorized your every aspect and view,
walked you from South Street’s decay
to Kensington’s skeleton-lined avenues,
I knew your markets and your alleys.
The light-filled rationality of Christ Church
to the Occidental streets behind the Chinese gate.

I have been damaged
as by sunlight too bright,
too well observed,
and no one understands here
in this peninsular Midwest,
what I have seen
and what it meant
or why I dream of you yet.

The Locals by Jonathan Dee

I am an introvert. I can be outgoing and talkative and friendly, but I know I am an introvert because being around a lot of people leaves me ready for a nap and a recharge, while an extrovert would be pumped.

I was in the middle of reading The Locals when I felt that drained feeling. The point of view kept jumping from person to person and there were too many voices and people for me to handle. I took a nap.

It was several days before I pushed myself to pick the book back up. I finished it in another day's reading.

The novel starts out strong with an abrasive con man. His victim is Mark, from a small town in the Berkshires, who lost his money in an investment scam. Mark is an 'easy mark', and loses his credit card to this grifter. The story follows Mark back home, introducing a whole village of characters, each struggling to make it.

A New York City hedge-fund manager moves his family into their summer cottage; 9-11 and 'inside information' has convinced him that the city is no longer safe. Philip Hadi likes his new town and assumes political and financial control, paying budgetary items out of pocket to keep taxes low and home values high.

When the town decides they can't allow Hadi to arbitrarily make laws, he feels unappreciated and up and leaves--taking his money with him. The town has to deal with the hard reality that they cannot cover the budget without raising taxes significantly. They realize that under Hadi they had been living in "a fool's paradise," and must reevaluate what is necessary. The new reality includes closing the library, creating new fees, and requiring citations quotas from police.

Character's thoughts reflect aspects of 21st-century thinking:

"Corruption was a fact of life, on the governmental level especially, and if you didn't find your own little way to make it work for you, then you'd be a victim of it."

"The nation was at war; the invisible nature of that war made it both harder and more important to be vigilant."

"He thought everybody on TV was full of shit--the pundits, the alarmists, the conspiracy theorists--but their very full-of-shittiness was like a confirmation of what he felt inside: that things right now were off their anchor, that the decline of people's belief in something showed up in their apparent willingness to believe anything."

"The best part [of the Internet] was feeling that you were anonymous out there but had an identity at the same time." "...and this internet was like some giant bathroom wall where you could just scrawl whatever hate you liked."

"Some people really come to life when they have an enemy."

"Rich people, he thought. The world shaped itself around their impulses."

I was perplexed and puzzled why I did not have any immediate thoughts about the book. The ending involves a teenager who flaunts the rules and finds empowerment in resistance. Perhaps I am just too dense for subtlety? Or am I confused by too many voices, too many opinions, that I am not sure of what the author is saying?

A Goodreads friend loved this novel, which inspired me to request it from NetGalley. (She is an extrovert.) I agree with her that there are no likable characters. Each is flawed and self-centered, discouraged and angry about missing that brass ring ticket to success and happiness. Well, that could describe quite a few people today.

Perhaps my problem with the book is I don't like who we have become and I don't like the options offered to us. At the end of The Locals, Allerton, the new selectman, realizes that "any sort of collective action was automatically suspect...because if it worked, then we wouldn't be in the mess we were now in."

Once upon a time, we believed in progress and the eternal upward arc into a better world, which now we condemn as the fallacy of fairy tale thinking. And I want to hold to that fairy tale of a possible Utopia, the Star Trek world, the Utopia for Realists. Dee's novel reflects what we have become, but I want to be inspired to consider what we may become.

So I return to the small and strange act of resistance at the end, a teenager who just wants to sleep in a historical home, and is told she may not. It took another night's sleep for me to wake up and think, yeah, that's it--the girl's seemingly small act of resistance is a metaphor, about reclaiming for all what is reserved for those who can pay for it.

I finally saw the light.

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

The Locals
by Jonathan Dee
Random House
Publication: August 8, 2017
Hardcover $28.00
ISBN:9780812993226

Mini Reviews: Hello, Sunsine; The End of Men; Audubon: On the Wings of the World; Pepys in Love

The cover alone was enough to bring a smile when it arrived on a rainy day. The next morning I woke up dreaming I had painted the bedroom yellow, the same yellow used for this book.

I read Hello, Sunshine in 24 hours.

In the first chapter, Sunshine Mackenizie is on top of the world. It's her birthday. She married the love of her life. Her YouTube cooking show has led to a contract with a Food Network series and a cookbook. But her entire public persona is a fabrication, her career runs her life, and the truth is that she can't really cook.

By the end of the day, she's been hacked and revealed as a fraud. Worse, she is revealed as having cheated--once--on her husband. In short course, the Food Network and book contracts are withdrawn, her staff leaves her, her husband leaves her, and she finds herself homeless and broke.

With no place else to go, she returns to her hometown of Montauk to crash with the sister she long ago left behind to deal alone with their obsessive father.

Sunshine must figure out how to move forward with her life by returning to her past and coming to terms with her estranged sister. The sister's daughter Sammy is a delightful character who helps to bring the sisters together. There are colorful locals, including a fishy hunk (literally, a man who catches sustainable fish) and the eccentric chef Z.

This was an enjoyable and quick read, especially after I'd tackled several heavy--and much longer books. The odd thing is how upbeat and light it all was, considering Sunshine's entire life had crashed. She seemed more befuddled than depressed about losing her husband and career. I never 'felt her pain.' So if you want to wallow in someone's agony, find another book.

Without being too didactic Dave injects a bit of insight about "what it means to live an authentic life in an inauthentic age." In this age of social media, is everyone creating a public persona of what they want others to see? Do we expect our culture heroes, icons, and leaders and even friends to hide the truth about themselves? And when they are revealed as frauds, do we forgive, or forget, or even care?

At the end, Sunshine starts over again, but this time without the fake backstory and unearned accomplishments. And we believe that she will make it. The novel is pure wish fulfillment fantasy.

I received a free book through a Goodreads giveaway.

****

Audubon: On the Wings of the World by Fabien Grolleau and Jeremie Royer is a graphic novel of 174 pages on the life of John James Audubon. I won this book on a giveaway from David Abram's blog The Quivering Pen.

A few years ago I read a historical fiction book on Audubon, Creation by Katherine Gouvier. Read my review here.

This book is a 'romanticized', loose interpretation of Audubon's life, concentrating on his single-minded obsession of studying and painting American birds. The abundance of wildlife and birds of those early years in America is portrayed, with intimations of the mass destruction that is to come.

"These birds must be painted now, while they still flourish in this pristine setting, unchanged since to dawn of time--for soon, I fear, it will be too late!"

from the publisher's website

Included is a biography and painting of the artist and reproductions of some of his wonderful paintings. It is an attractive book and would make a good introduction.

John James Audubon from
Green Heroes Quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske

****

Four women, successful in their careers, make stupid decisions in their personal lives, putting blame on their men, while wondering why they even want men in their lives.


It was hard to relate to these women, except for their relationship to their children. The issues felt dated. I did appreciate how they came to embrace healthier understandings and relationships.

The whole book can be summed up in the later interchange between two of the women. One character complains about equal opportunity meaning doing it all without men taking up their equal share of work at home and she is countered, "Do you think that doesn't come at some cost? " and "you've created the life that you wanted." She admits, "Sometimes I just think I can't handle what I want."

I received a free book as a LibraryThing win.

*****

I have read Samuel's Pepys diary. Twice. First I read Wheatley's three volume edition. Then I was gifted and read the ten volume complete edition from the University of California. I spent years ending my day with the words, "And so to bed." Yes, I am that crazy.

Pepys in Love by Patrick Delaforce was first published in 1986. I had hoped for traditional historical fiction, novelized, something with a plot line that followed history. I always imagined that Elizabeth Pepy's story would be very interesting. 

Delaforce instead offers chapters addressing various aspects of the Pepys family life, told by Elizabeth, but also chapters narrated by Samuel, Lord Sandwich, and Will Hewer. Information from the Diary was collected together so we read about Elizabeth's clothing purchases in a chapter, and about the portraits they sat for in another.

The book is illustrated with portraits and includes a chronological summary and bibliography. 

Having read the diary I was not very excited about this book. I imagine it would be perfect for someone who wanted to know about the political, cultural, and social world of Pepys time without spending several years reading the diary. In other words, someone who isn't crazy.

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

Pepys in Love: Elizabeth’s Story
by Patrick Delaforce
Thistle Publishing
Paperback $14.99
ISBN: 9781786080035

The Horrendous 1964 Alaskan Earthquake

When I was growing up in the early 1960s my grandfather was corresponding with Maurice Ewing and William Donn of the Lamont Geological Observatory. Gramps had been interested in their work since 1958 when he read a Harper's Magazine article by Betty Friedan called The Coming Ice Age about their research.

I didn't know that Project Moho, drilling cores in the deep sea, how to stop the next Ice Age, and Plate Tectonics were not normal dinner table talk subjects. Gramps even got his old college buddy Roger Blough, then president of U. S. Steel, to kick in some funding for their research.

Before 1971 when I took Historical Geology in college I had no idea that Plate Tectonics was a 'new' theory. I'd grown up with it.

I requested The Great Quake:How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain from First to Read because I like geology and enjoy reading about Alaska. I was excited to learn it was about the very research that proved Plate Tectonics.

Fountain introduces us to the people of several small Alaskan villages along the coast, recounting their history and way of life. The families have Russian last names, a legacy when Russia turned the native population into virtual slaves. They live on a subsistence level, their traditional hunting and fishing impacted by factory fishing.

In 1964, on Good Friday, a 9.8 earthquake wrecked havoc and destroyed the villages, claiming the lives of 130 people. It is devastating to read about the tsunamis that wiped the land clean not only of people and houses but trees and the loose rocky layer on the shore.

Geologist George Plafker was very familiar with the area. The day after the quake he flew over the area. His observations led to proving the controversial theory of Plate Tectonics that even Maurice Ewing did not yet subscribe to!

The book reads like popular disaster books such as Dead Wake by Eric Larson, setting up the people and history, recreating the horror of the disaster, and then cogently explaining how Plafker's research impacted the scientific community. Readers can expect to learn Alaskan history and geography, be moved by the horror of the destruction, and brought to understand this planet we live on.

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Great Quake
by Henry Fountain
Publication Date: August 8, 2017
Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN13: 9781101904060