Thursday, April 13, 2017

Mini Reviews: Family Problems

Bridget Jones's Baby by Helen Fielding

I enjoyed Bridget Jones's Diary and the movie based on the novel. It is loosely based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Very loosely! Bridget was fresh and fun. I read the second book in the series but missed the third installment.

When I won a copy of Bridget Jones's Baby from Read it Forward I anticipated revisiting Bridget. I'd been reading many heavy and dark books. I needed a bit of fun fluff.

I found book four to be formulaic. Bridget, Mark, and Daniel, even Jones's parents, were exactly who we've always known them to be. The stories seemed, well, thin.

But I recall my Jane Austen professor teaching about the satisfaction readers get from the known, the expected anticipation fulfilled, and the wish-fulfillment ending. This book offers readers all that. Like an old-fashioned sitcom, the characters don't change and we love it. Their stupid reactions are true to what we have always known about them, and we feel self-satisfied that we knew all along how it would be. And we do get the ending we always wanted.

Which all adds up to exactly the kind of read I needed: a few hours with old friends, nothing taxing, a few laughs shared, and when I turned out the light there were no troubling thoughts to keep me awake. Sweet dreams--Thanks, Bridget. You did it again.

I received a free book from Read it Forward.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng is an absorbing read opening with the lines "Lydia is dead. But they don't know it yet."

Centering on a Chinese American family living in a small Ohio college town in the 1970s, Ng strips away the facade and reveals that we may keep our fears and painful past to ourselves, but they play out in our acts and desires, hurting not only ourselves but our children.

Well deserved New York Times Notable Book and bestseller. Highly recommended.


The Little Paris Book Shop by Nina George was my book club pick of the month. Being a best seller, and liked by some of by Goodreads friends, I had hopes of a fun, but light, read. I did not enjoy it. I read 190 pages then skipped to the end.

Twenty years ago, bookseller Perdu was jilted by his married lover, and he's been a heartbroken, bitter man ever since--until he meets a woman who stirs the feelings that have been long dead. Instead of pursuing a relationship, he finally reads the goodbye letter from his past lover. He goes on a quest down the river to discover more.

The translation is at times quirky. I didn't buy Perdu's twenty-year grief over a woman who was never going to be all his anyway. And the ending is a little, well, uncomfortable.




Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Discover Pennsylvania Patchwork Pillowcases

Ann Hermes' personal collection formed the basis of her book Pennsylvania Patchwork Pillowcases.

Anne presents a history of the patchwork pillowcases with an interesting history of German immigrants in Pennsylvania.

Germans immigrated to Southeast Pennsylvania in record numbers in the 19th c. My own German ancestors first settled in Berks County and Lancaster County. Bucks, Leigh, Lebanon, and York counties also drew German populations.

The immigrants represented Mennonite, Schwenkfelder, Brethren, Lutheran and Reformed religious groups, commonly refered to as Pennsylvania Dutch. The Amish Germans did not have a tradition of pillow covers, nor did the English Quakers.

Ann's vast wealth of knowledge and research into the pillowcases makes fascinating reading. The pillowcases were sized to fit the traditional German bed and are constructed like a traditional patchwork quilt but with a fabric back and enclosed on one end. Other versions include the pillow sham and the cover which was placed on top of the pillow to keep them clean.

The fabrics indicate they were popularly made between 1820 and 1920.

Many include embellishments with lace, fringe, openwork, or cross stitch. Embroidered motifs, initials, and names also appear.
Pennsylvania Patchwork Pillows
Photographs show the construction of the pillowcases including details of edgings and closures employed. 

Chapters include Collecting Antique Textiles, Early 19th Century Pillowcases, Pillowcases by Design 1850-1900, Applique Pillowcases, Special Cases, and Other Small Treasures and are illustrated with 250 color photographs. Small treasures includes storage bags, square pillow covers, bags, doll quilts, and pot-holders.

The variety of antique fabrics, block patterns, and settings found in these small treasures are lovely to peruse. The historical fabrics can be seen in detail with dyes, prints, quilt patterns, and provenance described. Some pillowcases were kept with the original quilt they were made to accompany. 

Along with items from Ann's own collection are included examples found in museums, private collections, and historical society collections.

Like all Schiffer publications, the book is beautifully presented, with high quality color pages. 

Ann Hermes is a collector of antique quilts and a long-time student of quilt history. Originally from Northbrook, Illinois, Ann’s move to the Philadelphia area twenty-five years ago to pursue a career as a research scientist in the chemical industry landed her in a place rich in history and quilting traditions. She is a member of the American Quilt Study Group and an active participant in local textile history events. Inspired by her collection, Ann designs and makes miniature quilts, dozens of which have appeared in national quilting magazines. Ann lives in Ambler, Pennsylvania, with her husband, two sons, and two black cats.

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

Pennsylvania Patchwork Pillowcases
Anne R. Hermes
Schiffer Publications
$29.99 hard cover
ISBN: 978-0-7643-4610-1

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Poetry for Kids: Carl Sandburg

The beauty of poetic language and imagery can spur the imagination of young children. It is the mystery of poetry that it can inspire and elicit emotion independent of intellectual 'understanding'. We don't have to know how a poems works, or its every reference, to be moved. A poem is not a riddle to solve. A poem 'is'.

The MoonDance Press Poetry for Kids series provides a wonderful resource for introducing children to the magic of  America's great poets.


The latest book in the Poetry for Kids series is Carl Sandburg. Thirty-five age-appropriate poems for children age 8 to 13, selected by Kathryn Benzel, are accompanied by colorful original illustrations by Robert Crawford.

The Introduction is a brief biography of Carl Sandburg. He was born in 1878 to immigrant parents in Galesburg, Illinois. Typical of his generation and class, after he left school after 8th grade to work at menial jobs. He moved to Chicago before hopping a boxcar at age 19 to see America. 

Sandburg's poems are 'of the people,' from the prairie to the city factories, embracing his experience of American life from Reconstruction to the Depression, through two world wars to the invention of television and transcontinental flight. 

The poems are divided thematically: poems about people and poems about places.

Poems about people include interactions with the natural and human-made world. 


A boy studies nature in Young Bullfrogs, while I Am the People, the Mob extols workers and creators, the common people who make the world go.

Jazz Fantasia celebrates the free-form quintessential American music while Buffalo Bill recalls a boy's idolization of the Old West.
Poems about places begins with Sandburg's most famous poem, Fog, and includes Limited about the 'crack train' of the nation carrying passengers who don't look beyond their next stop. 

River Roads, Valley Song, and Between Two Hills--poems about the country--are balanced by Street Window, The Skyscraper Loves Night, and a selection from 'Smoke and Steel.'

The illustrations by Robert Crawford are beautiful: A man and his dog under the flowering fuchsia canopy of a crab-apple tree at dusk; a bright Jack-o-lantern at night; a girl on a pier under a purple sky reflected upon the lake.

Included are helps for parents or young readers: Explanations for Understanding offers definitions and historical information, and "What Carl Was Thinking" has a brief description of the poem's meaning or origin.

Poetry for Kids Emily Dickinson was published in October 2016.

These are wonderful books for the classroom, for family reading, or to gift to older children.

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

Poetry for Kids Carl Sandburg
Kathryn Benzel
Moon Dance Press
$14.95 hardcover
Publication April 3, 2017
ISBN: 9781633221512, 1633221512



Sunday, April 9, 2017

Building a New World Order: A $500 House in Detroit

I wanted to read Drew Philp's book A $500 House in Detroit  because he, like so many other young people, have returned to the city to make it home, to help establish a new city, a better city. Like the young man at my hair salon who bought a house in Brightmoor, who, starting from scratch, is making a new kind of house for a new generation.

Philp came from a rural area of Michigan, from generations of people who worked with their hands. He attended University of Michigan but was repulsed by the values and life style of wealth. He wanted something different, more authentic. Instead of taking a high salary job he wanted to find a life with meaning. He moved to Detroit and worked sanding floors, a 'token white' for an African American company, becoming their public face when selling in the suburbs.

When Philp bought his Poletown house at auction for $500 it was an empty shell--well, empty but for piles of human waste and the sawed off front end of a car.  Philp worked all day and restored his house all night. When he moved in he had no heat; it was a brutal winter without even hot water. It nearly broke his spirit and his health.

When we saw 'gentrification' in Philly, when people were moving in and restoring grand old homes, or factories being put to new use as housing, the city was not as far gone as Detroit. It seems like this is something new--Neighborhoods literally turned into 'urban prairie' with a few houses here and there, cut off from city services and protection. And kids like a twenty-three-year-old Philp deciding to move in and start from scratch.

And that 'scratch' includes community. Philp's heart-warming stories of acceptance and integration into the existing community is enviable. For few of us in the 'burbs know our neighbors anymore. The block parties of my youth and the mothers all looking out for the kids are things of the past.

Philp's book was eye opening on so many levels, including his history of Detroit's fall, the politics of corruption, the inequity that began long ago with 'urban renewal', and the value system of consumerism and business profit is well presented.

I communicated with Philp and he graciously answered some questions I posed.

Nancy: Few people have the will to live an authentic life based on values that are in tension with social expectations. I was wondering if you would talk about that.

Philp: I think much of my generation wants to live authentically, and in fact, I think it's the defining trait of the millennials. What I don't think we understand yet is how to do so. I was lucky. I had a background where I learned how to build physical things from an early age, and stumbled upon a community that could help encourage and transform those skills. For me, living an authentic life meant building a house. For others it's likely different.

But the underlying principle is we're looking to build a better world, one free from all kinds of coercion, that recognizes the interconnection of all different kinds of people and issues. You can see inklings of experiments like this in movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the camps at Standing Rock--they've been maligned for not having a dedicated plan, but I think that isn't the point. The point is to build community, a real one, and a new world, a better one. The kids at Occupy were doing it right there in the park, in practice, rather than begging a wealthy, disconnected politician to do it for them. I'm trying to do the same with my house and community.

Nancy: You have the rare ability to see beyond the surface: you don't just see a product, you see how it was manufactured and the implications on human lives and the environment. Where did this awareness come from?

Philp: I think I was pushed by circumstances. I've watched my countrymen and women die in wars nearly my entire life, at least one of which was built on lies. I've seen, in Detroit and elsewhere, people starving and homeless in "the greatest country on earth." I've taught in prisons where there is little to no rehabilitation going on, and the privatization of incarceration, the making money from locking people in cages. I've seen eight, just eight now, men owning half as much wealth as 50 percent of the world...the list goes on.

I feel I've been lied to very deeply, by my government, by society, by culture, and I've seen it with my own eyes, and had to begin looking for my own answers. They've led me to a startling place. From the clothing on our bodies to the pipes running through our homes, much of our comfort has been built on the near slavery of workers in the global South and environmental degradation the world over.

Nancy: I appreciated the sense of community that you describe in Detroit. Few communities behave like family any more. Can this be patterned in other communities?

Philp: I would argue that community is always important, we can just temporarily mask that need with longing for perceived safety and consumer culture, for example. There's a lot of ennui happening in the supposedly wonderful suburbs and McMansions. People aren't as happy as they pretend to be. In Detroit we're not all that special in finding community--we've just faced the problems longer than anyone else, and by virtue of time, have had longer to find the answers.

As to participation in community, I think it's what my generation is looking for above all else. Fulfillment comes from authentic life, which comes through community. Many of us have grown up in faceless suburbs, divorced from any meaningful culture, sense of belonging, and are very, very lonely. People have been moving back to cities to find a sense not only of selves but their history and connection to others. If the US continues down this road of fascism and cruelty, we're going to see an explosion of it.

Nancy: Everyone is rooting for Detroit to be the come-back kid but I know too many neighborhoods do not enjoy benefits from the growth of trendy restaurants or boutiques. Do you think that Detroit's past is it's future, with areas attracting suburbanites for play vs. areas of neglect and poverty?

Philp: I think that is what the grassroots in Detroit is fighting against. As I mention in the book, the only real failure Detroit can undergo in moving forward is not trying anything new. We have an amazing opportunity to become, as strange as it sounds, the city of the future. The grassroots in Detroit is attempting to solve global problems on the local level-- i.e., climate change, which we won't be getting too much help from the current federal administration--and paradoxically, Detroit has solutions to offer. Hopefully we can stave off the big money and current thinking in our own city to give them as a gift to the rest of the world.

Philp is one of those rare people who rise above status quo conventions to see a higher moral order, another vision of a better city. It gives one hope that America's future will be influenced by ideals that will lead to a better America.

Read the article that became a sensation and led to this book:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/drewphilp/why-i-bought-a-house-in-detroit-for-500?utm_term=.ejR4n797J#.cewKzMQM0

"As we rebuild this ashen city, we're deciding on an epic scale what we value as Americans in the 21st century. The American Dream is alive in Detroit, even if it flickers." Drew Philp

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

A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an American Home and an Abandoned City
by Drew Philp
Scribner
Publication April 11, 2017
$26 hard cover
ISBN: 9781476797984


Saturday, April 8, 2017

Memoirs of Eugene Gochenour: The Story of a Friendship

Dad finished his Chrysler stories with the story of his friend's tragic end.

"Russ C.

"I worked at Chrysler Engineering at Highland Park, Michigan, from 1964 to 1992.

"Chrysler had a plant in Huntsville, Alabama, and another at Sterling Heights, Michigan where engineering and building of major portions of the Redstone, Jupiter, and Saturn rockets were done for the U.S. Space Agency. When the contract with the government ended, many of their engineers and managers moved to Highland Park. This must have been hard for them, leaving modern plants with the latest technology and going to work where the buildings and equipment were ancient. Pat McI., Vic A., Al P., and Russ C. were a few of the good people that joined our lab. At that time we were the Air Conditioning and Heater Lab.

"Russ had been a foreman at the Van Dyke facility in Sterling Heights, MI and when he came to Highland Park he was made a technician. Even though he did not have a degree I thought he was the best engineer I had ever seen.

"Russ and I became good friends, and since he lived near by and his house was on the way to work I would pick him up. He was always ready and waiting when I came. Russ had a wife named Joyce, like my wife, and she was a very fine person.

"One day Russ told me he was going to sell one of his cars. it was a 1967 Plymouth Satellite convertible. I knew Russ had always taken excellent care of his vehicles and I bought it from him for $800. Joyce and I enjoyed riding around the town with the top down in the evening during the summer. Eventually, I gave the car to my son Tom when he left high school.

"Russ and Joyce had a cabin in the northern lower peninsula on Lake Bellville near Traverse City. One winter right after Christmas, Russ, Ron H., Dick D., Terry H., Bob P., and I drove there to do some ice fishing. The cabin was a beautiful log structure and it had a clear view of the lake.

"When we arrived the snow was fairly deep, but the lake had not yet frozen. Dick and I had brought our shotguns along, so the next day we decided to go rabbit hunting. As we loaded the car, a neighbor lady called over and told us we had better not shot the bunnies that lived in the swamp in front of her cabin. We assured her we were not hunting near by and left.

We drove a few miles and found an area that looked promising and parked. After tromping through the snow in the woods for a while, and not seeing any bunnies, we left and went back to the cabin.

"While we waited for the ice to freeze we played cards and drank apricot brandy. Then the ice froze enough for us to set out tip-ups and begin to fish. It was very cold and one day after we had set up our tip-ups we went back to the cabin and sat by the window so we could watch them.

"We had not sat there long when we heard a knock on the door. When we opened it, standing there was the game warden. We asked him in and then he asked to see our fishing licenses. Lucky for us we all had bought them and set up only two tip-ups each, so we were legal. But he told us that he could have given us a ticket because the lines were unattended. But he overlooked it because we could watch from the window. We did not catch a lot of fish, but we had a great time.

"At work, when Russ brought me a work order it was always well thought out and he always provided me with everything I would need to complete the job. Russ was liked by everyone. He was one of the finest people I knew. But things were not well at home. Joyce left him, and only then did I find that Russ was an alcoholic. I never had a clue that Russ had a drinking problem. I did not know that he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous until one evening when he called my wife and I to tell us and relieve his conscience.

"Russ missed a few days of work, and one evening I went to his house and knocked on the back door. Russ only opened the door because he had ordered a pizza and thought I was the delivery man. I was shocked to see the condition he was in. He had not shaved, his hair was uncombed, and he looked like he had not changed his clothes in days. When I entered the kitchen I noticed all the clutter on the table and counter. This was not like the Russ I knew.

"We talked for a while and I listened as he told me that his wife had left and that they should have had kids, should have moved to a different house, and other excuses, avoiding the real problem--his drinking. I tried to build up his ego by telling him that everyone I knew thought very highly of him, then eventually left.

"After Joyce left Russ she would occasionally call my wife to tell her what was going on. She said she had joined Alanon. They told her an alcoholic will not stop drinking until they hit bottom, and that is why she left Russ.

"One day Russ's wife Joyce called me at work and asked me to meet her at their house at noon so she could talk to him. So, at 11:30 am I left work and when I got there I saw police cars and fire trucks surrounding the house. I parked and asked someone what had happened, and they said Russ had committed suicide. This was a shock to me, and when I looked toward the garage I saw the door was open and the interior was all black from a coating of carbon.

"As usual, Russ had done a meticulous job. He had bought some flexible metal tubing which he taped to the tailpipe of the car, some duct tape with which he sealed the doors and windows of the garage, then he started the car engine and sat in the front seat.

"Russ had called his wife Joyce and asked her to meet him at the house. When I talked to another close friend of Russ's I was told he thought Russ had planned for Joyce to arrive before he was asphyxiated because when the garage door was opened, they saw that Russ had left the car, as if he had changed his mind, but it was too late.

"And so I lost my good friend Russ. Not too long after, Joyce sold the house and moved to be near her sister. We still write Christmas cards to each other every year."

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Grief Cottage by Gail Godwin

Character's inner ruins lay concealed, their grief diverted by obsessions and addictions, in Gail Godwin's novel Grief Cottage.

After the death of his single mother, eleven-year-old Marcus's only living family member, his Aunt Charlotte, becomes his guardian. While his depressed aunt spends her days in her art studio, painting and sipping bottles of red wine, Marcus uses his honed homemaking skills to keep the beach front cottage spic and span, making himself useful, as he did for his working mom. Marcus is also an expert caretaker, responsible and useful; his own needs are shunt aside, his own grief and doubt internalized.

The rest of his day Marcus walks the South Carolina beach to visit the deserted house locals call Grief Cottage. Marcus is obsessed to know more about the tragedy that took place there. A family vacationing at the cottage disappeared in the 1954 hurricane, the parents searching for their missing son. How could no one have recorded the family's name? Marcus visits the empty shell of a house daily, 'courting' the ghost of the boy who appears to him.

"Marcus feels the pain of others," said Aunt Charlotte, "even when they're dead and gone."

Charlotte's cottage is filled with grief. Charlotte tries to escape the memory of her 'devil' father who at age five began to 'poison' her. It is 'the good old family horror story', Greek or Shakespearian in nature. Marcus is burdened by his lonely childhood, shamed when his one friend discovered he shared a bed with his mother. In a rage, Marcus beat the boy up. He underwent counseling and then his mother left her job and they moved-- to worse conditions--then his mother was killed in a car accident.

In the galley reader's note, Godwin writes that she was inspired by stories of ghosts whose arrival coincides with a mental crisis, tales grounded in 'daily life,' but which  'leaves a window for the possibility of a reality we haven't discovered yet."

"People see what they want to see. Or imagine they saw. "

For a lonely eleven-year-old child in a new place, deep in grief, imagining a ghostly friend is not a far stretch. I had Homer the Ghost to keep me company when we moved the year I turned eleven. I knew he was imaginary. Marcus has to work to keep his 'realities' separate, the duties he owed to his aunt and to the ghost boy, to keep his sanity. It makes him feel even more isolated, for who would understand?

I was compelled by this story to read far into the night. Even the supporting characters are sympathetic, full and real. There is a climatic revelation, and life goes on as it had, Marcus and his aunt supporting each other. And at the very end, a moment of grace returns Marcus something he had lost and gives him something he had long searched for.

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

Grief Cottage
Gail Godwin
Bloomsbury
Publication Date June 6, 2017
$27 hardcover
ISBN: 9781632867049






Wednesday, April 5, 2017

What's Up?

This month I have several quilts hanging in the Blair Memorial Library:

Regency Redwork, my original story book quilt based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.




Cranes in Winter, made with fusible applique, machine quilted, hand beaded. The image is from a National Geographic photo of Japanese cranes in winter. I tried to show the effect of the snow using a sparkly tulle overlay.


Morning Glory Flower Fairy is based on an image from Anna O. Scott's A Year With the Fairies. It is crayon tinted, embroidered, embellished with beading and appliqued silk flowers, machine quilted, and has a tulle overlay. In 2015 I started each month with a post including illustrations and the poetry from Scott's book.


Other quilts this month include this yo-yo quilt from Bev Olson,



 Coffee or Tea from Betty Carpenter,


and another from Betty, Daffodils.



The display case is dear to my heart--Breyer horses, which I collected as a girl back when I was 'horse crazy.'


Including one of my favorite children's books as a girl, Brighty of the Grand Canyon!



And at the circulation desk is Peter Rabbit wishing us all a HAPPY SPRING!


Make your own Peter Rabbit and friends craft with Stitching with Beatrix Potter!