A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins by Lloyd Spencer Davis

My eye caught three things: Robert Falcon Scott--Antarctica--Penguins--and I submitted my request for the galley. Later I noted one other stand-out word: Sex. Specifically, the sex lives of penguins, but the book embraced more than just the birds' proclivities.

My first introduction to Antarctica was Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater, which an elementary school teacher read aloud to my class. I read it many times. When I was about eleven years old I picked up The Great White South by Herbert Ponting, the photographer on the Scott Expedition to the South Pole. Scott's story caught my imagination. He was a tragic, flawed hero. Ever since, I have been drawn to read books about Polar expeditions and explorers. 

One of Herbert Ponting's amazing photographs

A Polar Affair by Llyod Spencer Davis is a highly readable and entertaining book about Davis's career in penguin research and the stories of the explorers who first encountered the Antarctic penguins. Specifically, George Murray Levick, physician with the Scott expedition, who became the first to record the habits and lives of penguins.

Levick wrote a book but it was never made public. When Davis discovered a copy he was shocked to learn that he was not the first to observe what Levick had already documented.

The book is a wonderful blend, offering science and nature, history, first-person account, and adventure. He vividly recounts the story of the men who vied to be the first to reach the South Pole, including their human frailties and ill-thought decisions. 

The story of Levick and two other men trapped over an Antarctic winter in an ice cave is especially horrifying to read! The harsh realities of the penguins' struggle to survive was eye-opening.

Davis's quest to understand Levick and the mystery of the suppressed research takes him across the world, snooping into libraries and museums. 

Even though I know the stories, I was riveted, especially since Davis includes the explorer's personal lives. As Davis writes, "Our idols are never so virtuous as we make them out to be."

The next visit I make to the Detroit Zoo Penguin Conservation Center I will be looking at the penguins with more appreciation.

I was given access to a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

A Polar Affair: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero and the Secret Love Lives of Penguins

by Lloyd Spencer Davis

Pegasus Books

Pub Date 03 Sep 2019  

ISBN 9781643131252

PRICE $29.95 (USD)

Other books I have reviewed about Antarctic exploration:

To the Edges of the Earth by Edward J. Larson

https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-last-of-old-fashioned-heroes.html

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/03/ice-ghosts-200-years-searching-for-lost.html

The White Darkness by David Grann
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/10/white-darkness-by-david-grann-story-of.html

Fiction about Antarctica:

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-last-continent-by-midge-raymond.html

The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-birthday-boys-by-beryl-bainbridge.html

Quilts, Books and News

No, I do not need any more books...but who can resist a 50% off deal? I can't. And I dragged my husband along and he found several books as well. 

I tried to get the galley for The Darwin Affair. Miracle Creek has had rave reviews. And Greek to Me had me laughing out loud the first page. My husband has enjoyed Linda Castillo's novels and thought When Life Gives You Lululemons would be a fun read.

Several LibraryThing books had never arrived but an email to the publisher got a great response. I now have Bill McKibben's Falter on my TBR review pile.

And Archeology From Space by Sarah Parcak.

I am reading:

• America is Immigrants by Sara Novic, a Goodreads win
• Motherhood So White by Nefertiti Austin, a Book Club Cook Book galley win being read by my library book club 
• Adventures of the Peculiar Protocol, a new Sherlock Holmes mystery by Nicholas Meyer who wrote the Seven Percent Solution
• Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison
• Little Women Cookbook by Wini Moranville and Louisa May Alcott
• Patchwork Picnic: Simple-To-Piece Blocks that Celebrate the Outdoors by Gracey Larson

Parade Magazine in our weekly Free Press often has a book column. This past Sunday they highlighted This Tender Land by Kent Krueger, a book I loved. My review is coming upon its publication. Krueger is reading the fantastic Virgil Wander by Lief Enger, which I reviewed here.

I shared my 1857 Album quilt at my weekly quilt group and they took some great pics.

I also shared the Halloween table runner I made as a gift.

I used leftover fabric to make placemats to match, shown below with a cute black cat mug I thought could hold candy or an arrangement as a centerpiece.

Close to 30 years ago my dad planted two apple trees next to the patio. Over the last nine years, we have trimmed them back every winter and they have become prolific fruit bearers. This year they did not get the black-spotted fungus and we had a rainy spring and a dry, sunny summer. We have more apples than we can handle. The pic below shows what we gathered in TEN MINUTES!

We will be making apple butter very soon.

And I am enjoying the weekly farm stand in the city part two blocks away.

Last of all, I have joined a fitness center and have signed up to work with a fitness coach! This is taking me out of my comfort zone for sure!
I want to build strength and balance and muscle tone. I have issues with vertigo and also am working with a doctor to deal with it.

What are you up to?

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger

Set during the summer of 1932, This Tender Land is a story that embraces tragedy and cruelty, kindness and love, murder and salvation. Most of all, it is about hope. Hope that we can find home, hope that we will find love, hope that life offers more than terror and injustice and cruelty. Hope that we can forgive and be forgiven.

This mythic story is a combination of Huckleberry Finn for its river journey and episodic adventures, with characters and events encountered from The Odyssey, and the darkness of The Night of the Hunter with children under threat fleeing downriver. And it recalls to mind the Book of Job as Odie grapples with the nature of God.

In 1932 Minnesota, orphaned brothers Albert and Odie are sent by their aunt to a Native American school, where she believes they are being well taken care of. The Brickmans run the school, siphoning off funds for themselves and allowing cruelty and abuse to reign. The boys befriend the mute Native American boy Mose. Albert and Mose are hard workers, but Odie rebels and is often punished. They have a friend in the teacher Voght, and the kind, widowed music teacher who offers to take the boys into her home to help run her farm. But a tornado takes her life, leaving her daughter Emmy in the hands of the cruel school headmistress. 

The 'tornado god' wrecks more disaster in Odie's life, leading to an accidental death. The children together flee down the Mississippi River in a canoe, pursued by the headmistress of the school and the police who believes the girl Emmy was kidnapped. 

William Kent Krueger writes, "I love this book every bit as much as I loved Ordinary Grace," and that offering this book he is "offering his heart." I, too, loved it every bit as Ordinary Grace, if not more.

It's a big 400-page book, engrossing and beautiful and heartbreaking. There is a lot of 'God talk' between Odie and the people he met who help him understand the timeless problem of why God allows evil in this world. 

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Read my review of Ordinary Grace here.

This Tender Land 

by William Kent Krueger

Atria Books 

Publication September 3, 2019

hardcover $27.99

ISBN13: 9781476749297

Whose Water Is It Anyway? Taking Water Protection into Public Hands

I have read the headlines and news articles:

In Detroit, surviving without water has become a way of life, 2018 Bridge Magazine article headline
ACLU Petitions State to Stop Detroit Water Shut Offs, 2019 Michigan Public Radio story
Water Shut Offs Could Reach 17,000 Households, 2018 Detroit Free Press article
According to the EPA, an affordable water bill costs about 4.5 percent of a household’s monthly income, but metro Detroiters are paying around 10 percent. 2019 Curbed Detroit article 

My own water/sewer bill in the Detroit suburbs has doubled over ten years. We have installed low water toilets and appliances and we don't water the grass in summer. We have four rain barrels to water the gardens.

Luckily, we can pay our water bill. I can't imagine how people survive without reliable, clean, tap water. People who can't afford water like thousands in Detroit--and across the world. People like those in Flint and Oscoda other Michigan communities whose tap water is polluted with lead and PFAS.

In Michigan, surrounded by the Great Lakes, and embracing 11,000 lakes, we still don't provide clean water to all. In Osceola, Michigan Nestle pumps out our water for $200 a year, but our citizens in vulnerable communities suffer. Where is the justice in this?

Author and water activist Maude Barlow has fought for water justice since 1985 when NAFTA gave Americans access to Canadia's water resources. Alarmed at the implications, Barlow questioned, who owns the water?

In Whose Water Is It Anyway? Barlow celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Blue Communities Project. She describes her personal journey as an activist. She explains how water became privatized and the impact world-wide. Finally, Barlow presents the Blue Communities Project which has been adopted across the world, putting water back into the hands of the people, with sample documents to help local citizens begin their own campaign.

Companies have bought water rights and pumped the groundwater dry across the world. And all those plastic bottles have created a nightmare. Not just as trash--Barlow shares that bottled water testing shows most contain micro-plastic!

I was surprised to learn that the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights did not include access to water as a basic right because seventy years ago it was assumed all people had and would have access to water. Today we know that water is not limitless. Barlow tells how privatization of water takes local water away from citizens to be sold for a profit. In 2015 the UN finally addressed the human right to water. Included is the statement that governments must provide clean water to people, "must refrain from any action or policy, such as water cut-offs," and are obliged to prevent businesses from polluting a community's water.

But to fulfill that promise, citizens must claim the power over their water. Barlow's book tells us how to do that.

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

from the publisher:

The Blue Communities Project is dedicated to three primary things: that access to clean, drinkable water is a basic human right; that municipal and community water will be held in public hands; and that single-use plastic water bottles will not be available in public spaces. With its simple, straightforward approach, the movement has been growing around the world for a decade. Today, Paris, Berlin, Bern, and Montreal are just a few of the cities that have made themselves Blue Communities. 

In Whose Water Is It, Anyway?, renowned water justice activist Maude Barlow recounts her own education in water issues as she and her fellow grassroots water warriors woke up to the immense pressures facing water in a warming world. Concluding with a step-by-step guide to making your own community blue, Maude Barlow’s latest book is a heartening example of how ordinary people can effect enormous change.

the authorMaude Barlow is the international bestselling author of 19 books, including the bestselling Blue Water trilogy. She is the honorary chair of the Council of Canadians and of the Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She is on the executive committee of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and a councillor with the World Future Council. In 2008–09, she served as senior advisor on water to the 63rd president of the UN General Assembly and was a leader in the campaign to have water recognized as a human right by the UN. In 2005, she won the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, the “alternative Nobel.” She lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Whose Water Is It, Anyway?: Taking Water Protection into Public Hands
Maude Barlow
ECW Press
Publication September 2019
$19.50 CAD
ISBN: 9781770414303

Helen Korngold Diary: August 25-31, 1919

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

Helen is enjoying a summer break after graduation from Washington University before taking up teaching.

Apparently, in October Helen tried to fill in some blank days in the diary. 

August

Monday 25
Worked around. Wrote letters in evening.

Tuesday 26
I think I spent most of this day in Granite City.

Wednesday 27
It is late in October now & I don’t remember much of what happened this day.

Thursday 28
Suppose I cleaned & ironed

Friday 29
Cleaned

Saturday 30
Fooled around

Sunday 31
Had a good time.

Notes:
Aug 26

Granite City in Madison County, IL is part of the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area. In 1906-7 a flood of 10,000 East and Central European immigrants settled there. In was the birthplace of Granitewear, granite coated tin cooking utensils that became a major U.S. industry.
http://www.granitecitygossip.com/HistoricalPagesGraniteCity.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granite_City,_Illinois

*****

A new source on Newspapers.com is The Jewish Voice, published in St. Louis from 1888 to 1933, with papers available from 1888-1920.

In the social news, I learned that Helen's summer 1919 trip to Colorado Springs was to visit her uncle Joseph Frey! I have no record of his living outside of St. Louis, so he must have invited her to travel with him on vacation.

On his WWII draft card, Joseph (1884-1962) worked for the Levi Memorial Hospital as a traveling field sec. Joseph was 5'10", 185 pounds, with gray hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion. His WWI draft card showed he was a pharmacist and had black hair and eyes. He edited A Modern View, a Jewish newspaper. I do not find that he was married.

I quickly discovered articles written by Helen for the Junior Auxiliary Council of Jewish Women, articles about her father's involvement in United Hebrew Temple, her Aunt Beryl Frey's musical presentations, and poetry and articles published by her mother Eva Frey Korngold.

Our Home
Eva Korngold, St. Louis
(Sung to the air of America.)
The Jewish Voice, Nov. 11, 1915

Our temple let it be,
A home to you and me. All through, our lives.
Here let us learn to love,
And worship Him above.
Let praises fill the air Of God our King.

When sorrow fills our soul
And friends with us condole,
Oh, give us strength.
Turn not away Thy face,
But with Thy endless grace,
Help us to bear our woes,
Throughout our days.

When joy spreads far its light,
Throughout the world so bright,
Glory be Thine.
Loud let us then proclaim,
And glorify Thy name,
Let voices ring with cheer,
From far and near.

Let then our temple hold,
And gather in its fold, Those of our faith.
 And then from out our ranks,
We'll offer up our thanks,
For strength or joy that's ours,
To Him above.

You and I
By Eva Korngold
The Jewish Voice, July 21, 1916

If you would always say
Kind words the livelong day,
And I would always smile and bow
A world of friends we'd have by now. I

f you would always do
What you think good and true,
And 1 would follow close behind
A paradise on earth we'd find.

If you would thankful be
For gifts that God gave thee,
And in practice would put mine
The sun for us would always shine.

Our Moses
Eva Korngold
(Poem for Children.)
07 Apr 1916

The Pessach week is close at hand,
Which we celebrate throughout the land,
With feasts and prayers and hope and song
In the land of Zion to be ere long.

We think of Moses, the wonderful boy
Who filled our nation with so much joy;
We picture him into the water thrown,
Thank God, he was not left alone.

Sis' Miriam, with heart so good and true,
Walked back and forth the long day through,
'Till Pharaoh's offspring With maids so gay.
Came dancing along that very same way.

The golden-haired Moses in the basket they spied,
'Twas the voice of God, that through him cried,
That touched their hearts so big and fine,
To save from death this child divine.

Then Miriam with joy stepped forth to say,
That she a nurse could fetch that day.
And off she flew to bring his mother.
Who nursed the child as could no other.

To the palace in haste, the child was brought.
Where a home for him the princess sought.
The king, to please his daughter so fair
Allowed the child to stay right there.

Now he received much love and care,
Mid all that helped him well to fare,
He grew to be a man so great,
That none like him e'er lived to date.

In the ways of God he lived and walked,
Of Him so much he wrote and talked.
The fetters of the Jews he broke asunder
Great things he did to make them wonder.

When plague after plague was of no avail
It seemed as if his scheme would fail,
To lead the Jews from out the land
Where they were slaves at the king's demand.

But soon through the sea the Jews were led,
And into the desert with them he fled.
They had no time their bread to bake,
Unleavened food were glad to make.

For oven they used the sun so hot.
And all were pleased to bear their lot,
For now they felt that they were free,
As all the people on earth should be.

For years and years they lived in peace,
Until their worship of God did cease,
And now in memory of Moses' great feat,
The matzos in freedom and peace we eat.

ON SHABUOTH
 By Eva Korngold
The Jewish Voice, June 2, 1916

Like angels that are pure and heavenly
The messengers and servants of our God;
Like sun and moon and stars and all that's bright,
The wonder works that give our world delight;
Like budding trees and flowers of early Spring
That bid fair promise to blossom and to bloom
Just so pure, so radiant and full of hope.
This day with joy that words can never paint.
We see upon the altar of God and man
Our little children ready to embrace
The faith that stands for love, for truth, for hope;
They pledge the Ten Commandments to obey,
The laws that rule and govern all the world
Which on this day the Lord our God gave us.
The duties of the Jew toward God and man
Has been religiously on them impressed,
And when the holy blessings are pronounced
On heads that low before our Father, bow,
May the voice of Him be heard to say Amen.

June 9, 1916

Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah

"This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Duadi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sear and buried in his own land."~ from Out of Darkness, Shining Light (Being a Faithful Account of the Final Years and Earthly Days of Doctor David Livingstone and His Last Journey form the interior to the Coast of Africa, as Narrated by His African Companions, in Three Volumes) by Petina Gappah

Truth is often stranger than fiction, for who would imagine that the body of Doctor David Livingstone would be carried 1000 miles across Africa, under threat of dangers including kidnapping into slavery, so he could be shipped back to England and rest in his native land? It seems the stuff of legend. But it happened in 1873. Petina Gappah spent ten years researching this journey, then imagining the forgotten people whose dedication to the Doctor spurred their journey.

I had hoped for a great adventure story and found a journey that vividly recreates late 19th c Africa with its clash of cultures, religions, and power. It is filled with unforgettable characters, culminates in an explosive late revelation, and brings to light the impact of colonization.

The Doctor's missionary zeal abated while his anti-slavery zeal and respect for the Africans grew. He became obsessed with discovering the source of the Nile, believing its discovery would bring him the status and power to advance his ideals. When Stanley found the missing Livingstone he was already ill but would not return to civilization. The mixed group he had gathered, Africans, Muslims, manumitted slaves, and mission-trained Christian blacks, were left with the responsibility for his remains. They buried his heart and organs, dried his body, and proceeded to walk 279 days to Zanzibar.

Gappah tells the story in two voices. The appealing Halima was documented as Livingstone's cook, bought from slavery and freed by him. Halina's mother was a concubine in the house of a servant of the Sultan. Halima was a bondswoman passed from man to man. She dreams of the house Livingstone promised her. Then there is Jacob Wainwright, bought from slavery and sent to the mission school, a devote Christian who quotes The Pilgrim's Progress. Jacob's tale is stilted in language and filled with religious concerns, he is dislikeable and arrogant. He struggles with his passions and questions of faith. And yet, this faithful, educated, ambitious man's hopes are dashed because of his color and ethnicity.

The journey is rife with conflict and even death as the men vie for power and control and importance--and women. They face enemies and famine. They see hopeless villages devoid of their youth by the slavers. And everywhere, dry bones tied to trees, kidnapped Africans left by the slavers to die. Instead of welcome and assistance, the Europeans confiscate essentials.

"...this was no longer just the last journey of the Doctor, but our journey too. I was no longer just about the Doctor, about the wrongs and rights of bearing him home, or burying him here or buying him there, but about all that we had endured. It was about our fallen comrades." ~from Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah

How did this one man, this Doctor Livingstone, manage to inspire such loyalty? He was beloved because of his acceptance and respect for those he met, his understanding of human nature, his commitment to ending slavery--liberal Christian values out-of-sync with his time.

"But out of that great and troubling darkness came shining light. Our sacrifice burnished the glory of his life." ~from Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah

I was given access to a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Out of Darkness, Shining Light
by Petina Gappah
Scribner
Publication: September 10, 2019
$27 hardcover
ISBN13: 9781982110338

Beyond Charm Quilts Show and Tell

My weekly quilt group is filled with talent and their work is inspirational. A new member is Tammy L. Porath who we discovered published a book, Beyond Charm Quilts, along with Catherine L. McIntee. I found a copy for sale online.

Tammy explained that she and Catherine decided to make quilts using every fabric in a 100 count 5" charm pack from Jinny Beyer's fabric line. They had so much fun they continued to use the same 5" charm pack to make more quilts. As the project grew and the leftover charm fabrics became smaller. Every scrap was used!

The result was 36 quilts and a book contract from That Patchwork Place!

Tammy with her quilt Cut Your Losses, 10 1/2 x 26 inches. 

Tammy brought in her quilts to share with our group. The quilts varied in size and pattern, many drafted by Tammy to accommodate her 100 scraps. Each is immaculate in construction and design.

The first quilt Tammy made she gave to Catherine, who then made this spools quilt to give to Tammy.

The quilt measures at 20 1/2 x 24 inches and uses a folded technique to create the spool top and bottom, a technique explained in their book.

Tammy's second quilt in the series was Fanatic, 22 1/2 x 38 inches.

Tammy's Grandmother's Choice is a traditional quilt pattern.

Tammy with her Grandmother's Choice, 23 1/2 x 27 inches. 

Tammy stenciled the tree for her quilt The Tree of 100 Blossoms, below. She turned rectangle scraps into yo-yos and appliqued and beaded them to this 27 x 26 1/2 inch quilt.

Tammy's quilt Snapdragons, 27 x 37 1/2", used the charms in the flowers and in the border with it's folded buds.

Starlet, below, is a 14 1/2 " diameter round quilt, drafted by Tammy to accommodate all the 100 charms.

To the right of Starlet is Fusion, 10 x 11 1/2 inches. The fused charm pieces were stabilized with an organza overlay, lending a misty look.

Tammy's personal favorite is Facets, 13 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches. She used the 100 leftover half-square triangle pieces left from making another quilt. The border is remarkable--eight hand-dyed gradated gray fabrics meticulously pieced!

Southpaw, below left, 15 x 17 1/2 inches, has fifty blocks with two charm pieces each. Time for Everything, below right, 12 3/4 x 14 inches, sets the charms in hand-dyed pastels and has a fabulous madras plaid border.

 The Chinese Coins, 10 1/4 x 15 1/2 inches, was made with the tiniest scraps!

 Diamonds are Forever, 23 x 44 inches, includes tiny fused scarps.

The snake below uses tiny scraps but as it was not a quilt (three layers sewn together) it is included in the 'mistakes' page of the book.

Everyone loves Tammy's Cuckoo Clock, 26 1/2 x 34 inches, with its paper pieced birds. Tammy printed out the clock face and used Pigma pens to trace the design onto her fabric. The carved detail on the clock was created by fussy cutting a fabric.

The quilts will be given to her family members. Tammy says its time they came out from under the bed!