Time and Again by Jack Finney/ The Dutch House by Anne Patchett Audiobook

Leif Enger (Virgil Wander) and David Abrams (Brave Deeds) were talking on Instagram about the 1970 novel Time and Again by Jack Finney. I knew I had it on Kindle (along with hundreds of other ebooks still unread) and so took a look at it.

And I kept on reading. 

I missed this when it came out because I was graduating from high school and going to college at the time of its publication. And for years, my reading was mostly 'looking backwards' to the 19th c.--The century in which this novel is set!

Si Morely is a vet and bored commercial artist when he is recruited into a top secret government experiment--traveling back in time. He is an excellent student and becomes the best at time travel. 

He sets out to solve the mystery of his girlfriend's grandfather's death and strange headstone, with a half burnt letter her only clue. 

The story becomes a mystery, and a romance, and a study of what civilization has given us and what it has taken away. 

Finney excels at description. Every costume, every horse drawn vehicle, every building, and every activity is recreated in such detail, it's like seeing a movie play in one's head. The streets filled with their cacophony of noise and smells, congested with pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages. The city at play in the snow. A devastating fire and daring rescues. An escape from police. 

And, the book is filled with Si's drawings and photographs, illustrating what he has seen.

Enger said if he had a book club, this would be his first choice.

My husband and I so enjoyed listening to News of the World together that I borrowed the audiobook of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett from the library. I had heard so much praise about Tom Hanks' narration--and it was justified.

We absolutely loved Hanks interpretation of the text. He brought the story alive. When I read the novel I did not catch the humor as strongly as Hanks delivers it. I will listen to anything read by Hanks.

The characters love or hate the Dutch House. Ownership is coveted by a second wife who steals it from her step-kids and then kicks them out. They can never quite get over its loss; they spend hours remembering their childhood there. Their inability to move on curtails their growth and harms their relationships.

I recalled my own lost childhood home. I fantasized about growing up and buying it back. When it was torn down while I was still a teenager, I was broken-hearted. 

This is a story of family and brokenness and loving the wrong things and regret and forgiveness. In the end, our family becomes the people who we choose and who choose us to be family.

Read my review of the novel here.

Seasons of Life Quilt by Sandra L. Mollon

 

I love applique quilts and have made several applique sampler quilts. I am always eager to learn new techniques. 

When I saw Sandra L. Mollon's Seasons of Life Quilt: Techniques and Patterns for 13 Baltimore Album Quilt Blocks it was so beautiful I wanted to learn more. I loved the seasonal blocks, the variety of patterns, the doves and vases of flowers, and how she added adorable small animals- bunny, squirrel, and hedgehog--into the blocks.

Mollon learned Album style applique, as I did, from Elly Sienkiewicz's Baltimore Beauties and Beyond books. Mollon spent two years "diligently working away on" learning hand applique and hand quilting skills. She then earned a Viewer's Choice ribbon.

Seasons of Life by Sandra Mollon

Her Seasons of Life quilt is in the permanent collection at the National Quilt Museum.

Now, Sandra offers all she has learned over her years of quiltmaking and teaching in this wonderful book. 

She explains how to use successfully use silk fabrics in applique and the tools that will aid you. Learn how to make prepared-edge applique and glue for placing the pieces.

You will find detailed instructions with photographs showing how to make pieced leaves, folded rosebuds, rickrack flowers, ruched roses, yo yo flowers, and beaded berries. I love her idea for fringed flower centers and can't wait to try it. 

Learn how to embellish your applique with embroidery stitches and how to use ink and colored pencils for added dimension.

Student quilts illustrate ways to make your Seasons of Life sampler your own. Some kept Mollon's medallion layout while others used twelve blocks for a smaller quilt.

Flora and Fauna by Lora Zamk

Remembering Mary by Judy Green

Flora, Fauna, Butterflies, and Bugs by Beth Butura

Seasons of Life by Tina McConnell

Each block pattern is presented with a photograph of her original block and a detail of the applique. She describes the fabrics she used and her method of assembly and embellishment. 

These small photos don't do the quilt justice! Visit the publisher website where you can click on the photos to enlarge them at 

https://www.ctpub.com/seasons-of-life-quilt/

Mollon's masters degree in Biology from Central Michigan University shows in her eye for detail and precision in recreating in the flora and fauna in the quilt.

These patterns are challenging. But if you follow the instructions, you will create a drop-dead gorgeous quilt! Individual blocks could also be made for pillow tops. Or, make wall hangings with the three blocks from one season, or a four block quilt using one block from each season.

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

Discover more of Mollon's quilts at her gallery on her website:

https://www.sandramollonquilts.com/quilt-galleries

Seasons of Life Quilt: Techniques & Patterns for 13 Baltimore Album Quilt Blocks

Sandra Mollon Book ( $29.95 )

 eBook ( $23.99 )

112 pages + one 16-page pullout

ISBN: 9781617459610

UPC:  734817-113966

eISBN: 9781617459627

from the publisher

Take on your next quilting feat with a champion quilt! From expert quilter Sandra Mollon, recreate the “Seasons of Life” quilt, which is now a part of a permanent collection of the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. Learn techniques for incorporating unusual fabrics, creating dimensional flowers, as well as shading with inks and embellishing blocks. In true “Baltimore” style, each of the 13 blocks features a different tribute to nature in highly stylized fashion: baskets, wreaths, flowers, leaves and vines, and small garden or forest animals. Appliqué each block for your very own stunning creation.

Learn tons of techniques with appliqué, embroidery, ribbon work, beading, and more!

Includes full-sized pattern and instructions to the award-winning “Seasons of Life” quilt

Make 13 unique blocks with a pieced and scalloped border encircling the blocks

Meet Sandra

Sandra is an award winning quilter living in Northern California.  She has been quilting for over 30 years, and teaching for 18 years.  

Sandra began as a traditional quilter,  specializing in hand appliqué for a couple of decades.  You can see a few of my quilts in the book, “500 Traditional Quilts” by Lark Publications. She is currently working on a book to be released in 2021 with C & T Publication for her original designed quilt, “Seasons of Life.

She has had many quilts juried into large international and regional juried shows.  Her traditional quilt, “Season’s of Life”  won a major award in 2019 both at Road to California (Outstanding Large Quilt), and at the 2019 AQS Paducah show it won a purchase award and is in the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY.  

Additionally her work in art quilting has wonderful many place awards, a “Best Pictorial” award and a 3rd place award in 2019 at PIQF, a 1st Place in Wall at MQX 2019,  Best of Show Award and 1st place at the RCQG show in Sacramento Ca, 2018, and a 3rd place at Road to California in 2020.  

She enjoys teaching as well as working on her art, and loves to travel and meet new people.

Highway Blue by Ailsa McFarlane

Highway Blue is a short novel of under 200 pages. Alisa McFarlane offers readers a moment in time in the life of her characters, two lost and lonely young adults whose lives intersect in a moment in time. 

Twenty-year-old Anne Marie is going through the motions of life, living with strangers, work at a bar and dog walking giving her just enough money to survive, still hurt by the disappearance of her husband after a year of marriage. Now he suddenly has returned, hoping Anne Marie can save him, but she has nothing to give him.

But when a man attacks them and ends up dead, Cal convinces Anne Marie to run and over the next days she remembers her past and contemplates Cal's place in her future.

They are helped by strangers along the way, a happy couple and a lonely trucker. Cal tells Anne Marie that he had hoped their marriage would give him a place to belong in this world. She had loved him. He loved the idea of them.

Heavy on dialogue and Anne Marie's inner thoughts, the story is about romantic ideals and disillusion, the limits of love, and the strength to recreate oneself.

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

Highway Blue: A Novel
by Ailsa McFarlane
Random House Publishing Group - Hogarth
Pub Date May 18, 2021 
ISBN: 9780593229118
Hardcover $25.00 (USD)

A hypnotic debut of broken love on the run, from a blazingly original young writer

“A road novel, a love story, a coming-of-age tale, but with sentences so sharply wrought, characters so achingly precise, that it feels new and fresh and utterly alive.”—Lynn Steger Strong, author of Want

“In front of me the long length of the road wound out, wound out and wound on under hot sky. And I drove . . .”

In the lonely town of San Padua, Anne Marie can never get the sound of the ocean out of her head. And it’s here—dog-walking by day, working bars by night—where she tries to forget about her ex-husband, Cal: both their brief marriage and their long estrangement.

When Cal shows up on Anne Marie’s doorstep one day, clearly in trouble, she reluctantly agrees to a drink. But later that night a gun goes off in a violent accident and the young couple are forced to hit the open road together in escape.

Crammed in a beat-up car with their broken past, so begins a journey across a vast, mythical American landscape, through the dark seams of the country, toward a city that may or may not represent salvation. 

Highway Blue is a story of being lost and found—and of love, in all its forms. Written in spare, shimmering prose, it introduces the arrival of an electrifyingly singular new voice.

Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

During this pandemic I have seen friends on social media share rejuvenating experiences in nature through daily walks or hikes into the wilds, views from windows from homes in cities and woods and moors, experiences with fox frolicking in suburban yards or wild birds landing on outstretched palms offering seed and suet.

In the deep green woods, photo by my brother

My brother walks every weekend with his girlfriend, through every weather. They seek out the lonely places, the empty dirt roads, the parks only populated in sunshine. 

A lonely view by my brother

I have the local city park filled with towering oak trees and black squirrels hopping across the grass, a hawk watching overhead, or the protected woods were trillium carpet the forest floor in spring.

Trillium in suburban Tenhave Woods

Even my own patio, sitting under the apple trees, offers a daily respite, watching the robins joyously splash in the bird bath, the sparrows flitting in and out of their nesting box, while bee and butterfly visit the herb garden and zinnia, perhaps oblivious to the rabbit who sneaks in to steal leaves from the rose bush.

in my own back yard

How does anyone get through a week without communing with nature? A glimpse of flowering tree or autumnal glow of color across the grass? The raucous call of the Blue Jay or the hoot of an owl in the night?

Oak tree in the city woods

Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes that being rooted in nature is a spiritual practice. She shares her personal stories of walking barefoot and alone in the forest, camping and walking blind at night, healed, and sometimes afraid, by the experience. 

The spirituality of oneness with all the earth is ancient, the connectedness of all life part of religious experience found in many faiths, including Christianity. But modern humans live in houses and work in rooms and Western society buys and uses and discards; we have lost wonder and respect and stewardship for Earth.

Haupt's witness shows us how to regain the sacred, how to claim sisterhood with all living things, how to embrace the darkness, and how to heal the earth and ourselves.

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

I previously read the author's book Mozart's Starling, which I reviewed here.

Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit
by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
Little, Brown Spark
Pub Date May 4,  2021 
ISBN: 9780316426480
hardcover $27.00 (USD)

from the publisher

Deepen your connection to the natural world with this inspiring meditation, "a path to the place where science and spirit meet" (Robin Wall Kimmerer).

In Rooted, cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over millennia: life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth?

Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life.

In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world. 

Covid-19 Life: Books & Quilts

I decided to try some creative background ideas at the Mackinac Bridge block. I got the idea while waiting for the ophthalmologist in an examination room with nothing to do but look at the desk top home page image. I liked the way the artist put together colors for sky and water.

I layered various fabrics for the sky. For the water, I inserted a darker fabric into the lighter blue and then pleated them.

And I finished the first Cherish quilt block.

Book mail this week included

• The Artist Colony by Joanna Fitzpatrick from Caitlin Hamilton Summie Marketing and She Writes Press

• The Ground Breaking: An American City and its Search for Justice by Scott Ellsworth from Dutton Books via a Goodreads giveaway

And from LibraryThing came a Revell Books advanced reading copy 

• The Nature of Small Things by Susie Finkbeiner

New on my NetGalley shelf:

• Legends of the North Cascades by Jonathan Evison, courtesy of Algonquin Books
• The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by Robert S. Levine
• In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters by Nancy Goldstone
• Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, continuing Lucy Barton's story

Last of all, for Mother's Day my son gifted me Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Our son and his girl and Ellie and Sunny spent the day with us and my hubby made his spaghetti sauce and meatballs. The doggies were thrilled, especially Sunny who has only been at our house three times since adoption because of Covid. 

My husband has missed grocery shopping (unlike me) and has twice ventured out to a store in the last month. 

I am working on preparing the Cherish Quilt pieces for English paper piecing this summer. I hope to use up some of my stash!

Sunny looking out our window. The pups left footprints on the deep carpet.
Like the footprints they leave in our hearts, our son added.

Stay safe. Find your bliss.

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe

A Hundred Suns by Karin Tanabe caught my interest for it's setting in 1930s Indochine (later, Vietnam) under French colonial rule. 

Tanabe's protagonist Jesse plotted a life to escape the crushing poverty and abuse of her childhood. She achieved an education and became a teacher, then travels to Paris. When she catches a wealthy relation to the Michelin family, she is set up for life. They are in love and have a daughter.

She has kept her past a secret, so when a woman from her previous life shows up in Paris she is desperate to flee and convinces her husband Vincent to request a position overseeing the Michelin Indochine rubber plantations.

Tanabe's portrait of Indochine's beauty, tropical climate, and decadent expat society is vivid and beautifully rendered. High society--white and rich only, of course--has a veneer of respectability. The men indulge in sexual freedoms with the local women, the women indulge in leisure and alcohol, and everyone uses cocaine freely. 

Vincent's success depends on keeping production high and expenditures low. He works to improve the quality of life for the local workers--the 'coolies.' But overseers deal out cruel punishment to any who try to unionize and fight for humane treatment, the leaders tortured or murdered.

Jesse is taken under wing by the beautiful French woman Marcelle. Marcelle has an agenda. She is a communist and hates colonization and the Michelin family, who were responsible for killing the Indochine man loved by her best friend. Her Indochine lover Khoi is wealthy and gorgeous; by law, they are not allowed to marry. The couple lure Jesse into compromising situations. Marcelle plots to drive Jesse and Victor back to France.

Jesse strives to help her husband in his work, but also experiences strange psychotic episodes and struggles with self-doubt. 

I enjoyed reading the novel for it's setting and the suspense kept me turning pages. As readers come to understand the characters and their motivations deeper, the delineation between good and evil become blurred. 

Colonization and unbridled capitalism are shown to be the true evils. The 'coolies' are virtual slaves, contracting to work for three years in brutal conditions. When workers strive to organize for better treatment they suffer dire consequences, while the French are given lenient punishments for crimes. A corrupt system corrupts those who participate in the system. 

There are scenes of sexual activity and a glimpse into the torture of communist leaders on the plantation, and stories of abuse suffered by Jesse and her siblings. 

The novel will appeal to a wide range of readers--historical fiction, women's fiction, suspense and thrillers, and those who enjoy exotic settings. It is the perfect beach read.

I received a free book from the publisher through Book Club Cook Book. My review is fair and unbiased.

A Hundred Suns
by Karin Tanabe
St. Martin's Griffin
On Sale: 03/16/2021
ISBN: 9781250231482
$17.99 trade paperback

from the publisher

On a humid afternoon in 1933, American Jessie Lesage steps off a boat from Paris and onto the shores of Vietnam. Accompanying her French husband Victor, an heir to the Michelin rubber fortune, she’s certain that their new life is full of promise, for while the rest of the world is sinking into economic depression, Indochine is gold for the Michelins. Jessie knows that the vast plantations near Saigon are the key to the family’s prosperity, and though they have recently been marred in scandal, she needs them to succeed for her husband’s sake—and to ensure that the life she left behind in America stays buried in the past.

Jessie dives into the glamorous colonial world, where money is king and morals are brushed aside, and meets Marcelle de Fabry, a spellbinding expat with a wealthy Indochinese lover, the silk tycoon Khoi Nguyen. Descending on Jessie’s world like a hurricane, Marcelle proves to be an exuberant guide to colonial life. But hidden beneath her vivacious exterior is a fierce desire to put the colony back in the hands of its people––starting with the Michelin plantations.

It doesn’t take long for the sun-drenched days and champagne-soaked nights to catch up with Jessie. With an increasingly fractured mind, her affection for Indochine falters. And as a fiery political struggle builds around her, Jessie begins to wonder what’s real in a friendship that she suspects may be nothing but a house of cards.

Motivated by love, driven by ambition, and seeking self-preservation at all costs, Jessie and Marcelle each toe the line between friend and foe, ethics and excess. Cast against the stylish backdrop of 1920s Paris and 1930s Indochine, in a time and place defined by contrasts and convictions, Karin Tanabe's A Hundred Suns is historical fiction at its lush, suspenseful best.

About the Author

Karin Tanabe is the author of The Diplomat's Daughter, The Gilded Years, The Price of Inheritance, and The List. A former Politico reporter, her writing has also appeared in the The Washington Post, Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, and Newsday. She has made frequent appearances as a celebrity and politics expert on Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and The CBS Early Show. A graduate of Vassar College, Karin lives in Washington, DC.

That Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Don't let the pretty pastel cover art fool you into thinking That Summer is a lightweight read. Jennifer Weiner's latest novel delves into the #MeToo movement, showing how toxic masculine culture impels conformist behavior that ruins women's lives. Her protagonist, Diana, struggles with how to hold her rapist and his friends accountable.

Understanding how young men make bad decisions does not exonerate them. 

Weiner's portrayal of a teenage girl destroyed by someone she trusted and cared for, and her long path to recover her derailed life, is a page turner. Diana decided on a plan of revenge, assuming a fake identity to infiltrate her rapist's family. But nothing turns out the way she expects, especially when she bonds with the wife of her rapist.

Diana's experience is handled carefully, showing the resulting emotional scars. The one sexual encounter described is one that models true care and respect, if too graphically detailed for my taste; it seems a model of the behavior women should demand of a lover.

I previously read Weiner's novel Big Summer, reviewed here, and Mrs. Everything, reviewed here.

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

That Summer
A Novel
by Jennifer Weiner
Atria Books
Pub Date May 11, 2021  
ISBN: 9781501133541
hardcover CA$37.00 (CAD)

from the publisher

Daisy Shoemaker can’t sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she’s got it good. So why is she up all night?

While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she’s also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy’s driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy’s making dinner, Diana’s making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana’s glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy’s simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?

From the manicured Main Line of Philadelphia to the wild landscape of the Outer Cape, written with Jennifer Weiner’s signature wit and sharp observations, That Summer is a story about surviving our pasts, confronting our futures, and the sustaining bonds of friendship.