The Prague Sonata by Bradford Morrow

What makes me love a book? Gorgeous writing. Great characters. An intriguing plot. Insights into our common humanity. Historical perspective. Encountering joy and love. Encountering horror, war, and villains. A story line that grabs me so I want to know what happens next.

Some books have one or two of those attributes. To find a book that wraps up all of these things is a happy day indeed. Bradford Morrow's The Prague Sonata offers the whole package.

The story is rich and complex, and full of musical and visual references that made me think, "I can't wait to see the movie."

Protagonist Meta Taverner had dedicated her life to becoming a concert pianist when a fatal accident damaged her hand. Therapy has restored her ability to play, but only with "competence." When Meta performs at an outpatient cancer facility she attracts the notice of patient Irena who summons Meta to visit.

Irena has held the partial score of a piano sonata since her friend Otylie gave it to her to protect during the Nazi occupation of Prague. Irena tasks Meta with returning the score to Otylie, hoping the entire manuscript will be reunited.

Mesmerized by the sonata, and hoping to find the missing sections and perhaps solve the mystery of who composed it, Meta takes up the quest. She puts aside her job and boyfriend to journey to Prague. There, she learns the tragic history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazi and Soviet regimes, encounters threats and intrigue, and discovers love.

The novel expands with reading, moving from the narrow academic world of musicologists to the deprivations of war and the occupation of Prague, to the refugee experience. What starts as a mild mystery turns into a quest with elements of a thriller at the end.

Flashbacks fill in the story. Otylie's father was on leave from The Great War for her mother's funeral when he gave her the piano sonata. He told her, guard it with your own life; one day it will bring you great fortune. He soon after died.

Otylie was grown and newly married when Prague gaves the keys of the city to the Nazis. Otylie wanted to keep the score out of the hands of the Germans so she divided it into three parts, distributing a section to her beloved husband, who was a part of the underground resistance, and another to her dear friend Irena. She kept the first section for herself. At the end of WWII, Otylie's husband is dead and Irena has left the country. Otylie first immigrates to England and then to America.

The sonata's beauty and innovation is amazing. In a copyist's hand, the score appears to be a true antique, but there is no indication of the composer. Is it a lost work by Mozart, or C.P.E. Bach, or Hayden? The score ends with the beginning measures of the next movement, a Rondo.

Thirty-year-old Meta is naive and honest. She is driven by love of music and her pledge to reunite the sonata with it's rightful owner. Her mentor has connected her with Petr Witman, a musicologist contact in Prague who endeavors to undermine Meta; he tells her the sonata is a fake, hoping to get his hands on it. He sees fame and dollar signs. Witman is a man with shifting allegiances, doing whatever it took to stay afloat under the Nazis, the Soviets, and the new Federal Republic. He has no moral code.

Meta is supported by many people in Prague, including a journalist who falls in love with her. On their quest to find the third part of the score, they must keep one step ahead of Witmann. Meta's journey takes her across America, too, pursued by Witman.

I enjoyed learning about Prague and Czechoslovakia. In the 18th c it was the hub of culture and music, a city that loved Mozart. So many brilliant composers are associated with the city.

I loved that music informs the novel and musical language is used in descriptions.  Meta knows that the sonata represents a new chapter in her life. "If her own thirty years constituted a first movement of a sonata, she sensed in her gut that she was right now living the opening notes of the second." Morrow describes the second movement of the sonata given to Meta so well, one understands its "staggering power and slyness," the "quasi-requiem tones of the adagio" followed by the promise of joy indicated in the opening measures of the rondo in the second movement.

When I started reading The Prague Sonata I was unhappy I had requested such a long book. What was I thinking? As I got into the story, I was actually drawing out my reading, unwilling to end the experience too soon. And that's about the best thing a reader can say about a book!

(Read more about Mozart in Prague in Mozart's Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Devastation Road by Jason Hewitt concerns Czechoslovakia after WWII. The Spaceman of Bohemia is sci-fi that also addresses life under the Soviets.)

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

The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow
Grove Atlantic
Publication Oct 3, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN:  9780802127150

“A musical mystery set against the backdrop of a nation shattered by war and loss . . . sonically rich. . . an elegant foray into music and memory.”—Kirkus Reviews 

In Her Own Voice: Dimestore by Lee Smith and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

I love reading memoirs and biographies and diaries that allow me to hear the author's authentic voice.

Dimestore: A Writer's Life by Lee Smith, author of Oral History, Fair and Tender Ladies, and On Agate Hill s a beautiful memoir consisting of essays on aspects of her life.

Lee paints a warm and nostalgic portrait of growing up in a loving, supportive, yet dysfunctional family in Gundy, Virginia. Her father ran the dimestore in town. A later visit to the city reveals the changes that occurred over the years. Grundy, on the flood plain, had been literally moved to high ground. Wal-Mart was invited in, and was followed by other chains. Her beloved mountain where she ran wild as a girl had been top-mined, now a naked mesa with a city park.

The essays are far ranging, from her mother's recipe box, which included Pine Bark Stew and Cooter Pie, to her father's bipolar illness and mother's recurring depression and anxiety, learning to be a 'lady' at her aunt's city home, love life, and teaching career. Lee tells about hearing Eudora Welty read A Worn Path, then reading all her works until "a lightbulb clicked" about writing what you knew.  I was enchanted to meet Lou, an eccentric but gifted writer who showed up at a writing workshop,

I was especially moved when she wrote about her son, a brilliant musician who developed a mental disorder that required medication to keep him stabilized for a diminished life, but still one that mattered.

Lee writes about books and reading, writing and teaching, love and the end of love. It was a lovely read. I read a chapter each night before bed, never more, drawing out my pleasure.

I received a free book in a giveaway from David Abram's blog The Quivering Pen.

*****

This month one of my book clubs read The Diary of Anne Frank. It seemed a fitting choice considering the rise of hate groups, and that it is Banned Book Week. Almost all had read the book as a teenager.

Anne's optimism and ability to find beauty and joy under duress can teach us all.

Anne's small community was in extraordinary circumstances that put normal family and community bonds under abnormal stress. They were in fear every day. There were no external activities and relationships to diffuse negative energy, no ability for a nice walk and have friendly conversation with neighbors. Normally, Anne would have had girl friends undergoing the same changes. She only had her diary Kitty.

"It's an odd idea for someone like me to keep a diary...because it seems to me that neither I--nor for that matter anyone else--will be interested in the unbosomings of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart." Saturday 20 June, 1942 from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Early in the diary Anne admits her life would not be particularly interesting. And several book club members, both male, admitted that it was tedious for them to slough through all the petty family drama Anne wrote about. Had it not been for the special circumstances and Anne's tragic end they would not see the point of reading a teenager's diary.

I reflected on those comments in the back of my mind as the group shared their thoughts.

Anne addresses universal experiences with no self consciousness about what she exposes. Readers can connect their own experience and realize how 'normal' we all are. For such a young writer, she had an extraordinary self-awareness, a masterly command of language, and an unusual drive for personal growth.

Her discussion of her sexual growth and awareness she anticipates the feminist attitude of the 1970s when women were encouraged to explore their own bodies and accept their sexuality. Here is Anne discussing anatomy with a boy at a time when my mother was given no real information about sex, except advice that 'boys give love to get sex, and girls give sex to get love." Mom went on her honeymoon in total ignorance. Anne knows she is not 'in love' but finds pleasure in physical closeness and will not call it wrong.

When I had finished reading the diary I watched My Daughter, Anne Frank which I enjoyed very much. Anne's childhood friends talked about Anne, including 'boyfriends'. One saw her through the fence when she was at Bergen-Belsen, emaciated and shivering.

The diary and the film left me somber and sad. The next day I was reading about the U.S. army liberating the concentration camps in Germany, with descriptions of the number of dead and dying, the piles of bodies. Anne's face came to mind, and the sheer horror was too much to bear.

This is what the book club readers most commented upon. Anne is the face of the tens of thousands who died under the Nazi regime; she humanizes the cold statistics and makes us understand that which we would rather not know.

Anne Frank's diary has been banned, and yet everyone at the table agreed that this is one book that should be universally read.

All in a Row Again

All in a Row Again. Note Pat Sloan's retro camper row!!!

MODA All-Stars have returned in All In A Row Again with 23 more row-by-row quilt patterns! Motifs include flowers and trees, critters and creatures, buildings and houses, and classic patchwork.

Your favorite designers offer patterns in their signature styles to inspire you to create your own quilts, combining rows and "blender rows." Just look at the samples below to see the possibilities!

Evening Stars by Jo Morton, an embroidered bird from Kathy Schmitz, and Tricolor Stars by Lisa Bongean

of Primitive Gatherings. Note the 'blender rows' used in the border and as a spacer.

Whooo doesn't love those owls from Deb Strain! Other rows include Flitter Flutter by Stacy Iest Hsu,  Picket Fences by Sandy Gervais, Springtime by Corey Yoder, and Stars in Bloom by Sherri McConnell.

The quilt above demonstrates the use of blender rows, the narrow rows of repeated motifs.

Kathy Schmitz contributed this embroidered bird pattern. Her new book is Stitches from the Harvest, which you can read about here.

The rows can be used to make wall hangings or table toppers. This beach hut row from Sandy Klop of American Jane Patterns is so colorful and fun!

And so are these Barn Quilts from Kate Spain!

There are traditional patterns as well.

Stars and Geese from Betsy Chutchain 

I love Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill, and she contributes a pattern with her signature Hedgehog.
Other contributors include Jo Morton, Janet Clare, Laurie Simpson of Minick and Simpson, Lynne Hagmeier of Kansas Troubles Quilters, Alma Allen of Blackbird Designs, Brenda Riddle of Acorn Quilt & Gift Company, Barbara Groves and Mary Jacobson of Me and My Sister Designs, Karla Eisenach of Sweetwater, and Camille Roskelley of Thimble Blossoms.

Pollen by Jen Kingwell has a modern vibe

Each All-Star answers questions so we get to know them better. Most address concerns to quilters, like thread color used for piecing and favorite marking tools.

The instructions are top-notch, and there are links to print-ready patterns found online.

In case you need any more motivation to get this book, the royalties from the book are being donated to Give Kids the World Village which helps children with life-threatening illness to enjoy week long, cost-free family vacations.

See the first All in a Row book here.

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

Moda All-Stars - All in a Row Again
By Lissa Alexander
softcover $26.99
ISBN: 9781604688979
Publication Date: October 3rd, 2017

Dear Fahrenheit 451: Librarian Annie Spence Tells Books What She Thinks About Them

Back in my late twenties I considered returning to school for a degree in library science. My BA in English was not getting me very far in the late 1970s economy.

It made sense, after all, for when I was a girl hanging around libraries I imagined being the book answer person. Patrons would shyly come to me, uncertain and lost, and I would give them instructions on how to find that end-of-the-rainbow treasure of The Perfect Book for their reading pleasure.

I dreamt of being intimate with books, knowing them deeply, freely dispensing of my fount of wisdom.

Over the years I have known many librarians in many small Michigan communities. But I never joined their numbers.
Instead, I grew up to blog about books. I still get to freely dispense my fount of whatever, but sans salary.

When Dear Fahrenheit 451 appeared on NetGalley, it caught my eye right off, and I put in a "Wish For It" request which, I am grateful, Flatiron Books granted. I was happy to learn that author and librarian Annie Spence is a Michigan native who grew up in Metro Detroit and who currently is a librarian in Metro Detroit. I do love supporting Michigan and Detroit area authors!

Subtitled, Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks, a Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life, this bookish memoir includes letters to specific books and short essays on "Special Subjects" including Books about Librarians, Good Books with Bad Covers, and Turning Your Lover into a Reader. Spence adopts a casual writing voice, dealing out jabs and jokes, gushing paenes and sage advice, never boring or dull. Spence's love of books and what they have given her is celebrated, but she also reflects the truism that we fall out of love with some books and others leave us flat.

The books Spence addresses are varied, many of which I have not read and frankly, I skimmed some letters to books I don't know at this time. This is not a book you must read cover to end, you can pick and choose, returning to it now and then. At other times she piqued my interest in a book I had not read, like Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides, set in Detroit; I have only read the author's Middlesex and The Marriage Plot.

There are letters to Color Me Beautiful and The Hobbit, Wicked and Cannery Row, Blood Meridian and Matilda, the Harlequin Spinner Rack at the library, and the Public Library Children's Section. She addresses problems all readers share: I'd Rather Be Reading, Excuses to Tell Your Friends So You Can Stay Home With Your Books, and He's Just Not That Into Literacy: Turning Your Lover into a Reader. Book suggestions are offered with short reviews of books on a theme, and the Books I'll Never Break Up With includes her "forever bookshelf" loves.

Spence has written an extended love letter to books and libraries, extolling the joy of reading. It was great fun to read.

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

Dear Fahrenheit 451
Annie Spence
Flatiron Books
$18.99 hard cover
ISBN: 9781250106490

Mini-Reviews: Hot-Button Topics: Freedom to Marry, Immigrants, and Walls

Wild Mountain is set in the mountains of Vermont, a place of uncivilized natural beauty, where generations have come to commune with nature and the gods (and goddesses). The town of Wild Mountain is comprised of folk with deep roots and newcomers attracted to living simply in a beautiful place.

It is the story of Mona Duval's several battles which encompass her personal growth. She must let go of the past and her abusive ex-husband to embrace the future and the possibility of love. She stands loyal to old friends besieged by prejudice.

Mona's story is well developed with enough tension and conflict to keep readers of romance and women's fiction interested. The political issues the town struggles with, including the rebuilding of a historical covered bridge and the Freedom to Marry bill, highlights the division in the town, as well as in our world.

I was disappointed that the expected climax of the town meeting and voting on these issues takes place off camera. The issues drop out of center stage. Instead, the story line sifts focus to a (previously) minor character's death. The ending consists of an idealized gathering around an ancient stone circle on the solstice, with Wiccan and Christians celebrating together.

Learn more about the background of the book at  https://nancyhayeskilgore.wordpress.com

Wild Mountain
by Nancy Hayes Kilgore
Green Mountain Press
Publication Oct. 1, 2017
$19.95

*****

"The end of the world can be cozy at times."

After hearing so much about Exit West by Moshin Hamid I borrowed it from the library and fit it into my heavy reading schedule. It is a wonderful book, fiction about the refugee/immigrant experience.

Nadia and Saeed have just met and would, perhaps, fall in love and marry and have a normal life. Except militant radicals take over their unnamed city. They turn to each other in the crisis. When all normalcy is ended, they seek the 'doors' that have popped up allowing escape to other places.

"... that is the way of thing, for when we migrate, we murder from our lives those we leave behind."

As they travel through doors to other places they encounter all the immigrant experiences, from refugee camps to nativist mobs. The stress pulls the couple apart. 

"and when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same house our whole lives, because we can't help it. We are all migrants through time."

The magical realism of the doors allows an exploration of the totality of why people leave their homeland and the experience of being a stranger in strange lands. It is a sad but tale, beautifully told.

Find a Reading Guide at
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/549017/exit-west-by-mohsin-hamid/9780735212176/readers-guide/

Hardcover | $26.00
Published by Riverhead Books
ISBN 9780735212176

*****

In future days when America is divided into walled enclaves, those inside the walls are addicted to tablets and enjoy a sheltered life, while those outside live in a world of deadly ticks. Between the two is the Salt Line, a burnt out wasteland and immense garbage dump. Thrill seekers risk their lives to see the natural beauty on the other side of the walls.

The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones follows a tour group of the rich and the famous going over the Salt Line. They think they are on a three week experience of sights few inside the walls ever see. Yes, there are those gruesome ticks and the horrible death they carry. Protective suits offer some comfort, and there are tools to kill the ticks through extraction and burning eggs out of the tissue, leaving circular battle scars.

The tour group is taken hostage by an outer-zone insurgency group based in Ruby City, a functioning village populated mostly by people of Cherokee descent. The community is without fear of the ticks, thanks to The Salt. The hostages create alliances and discover what the out-zoners want from them.

I was hooked by the time the tour group reached the Salt Line. I enjoyed the characters with their various backgrounds and relationships: a gangster businessman with political ambitions and his wife who will do anything for their sons, a scrappy nobody with a big heart, and a entrepreneur looking for meaning.

Ruby City is peopled with characters who seem both admirable and well meaning, but are also willing to do whatever it takes to protect themselves.

There is a touch of mystery, intriguing motivations, and riveting action. And the whole issue of the Wall, who gets to be on the inside and who is left outside to fend for themselves in a lawless wilderness, can invite thoughtful consideration of the many walls being built today.

The ending is a bit weak, but only because it is obviously a set-up for a second volume. I along with many others will look forward to following these characters on their journeys.

You can find a Book Club Kit at  https://randomhouse.app.box.com/s/yavenpwz7lc34r3fmptx34pkn630icfw

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

Visitng the 2017 Quilters Showcase

The 2017 Quilters Showcase held at the Birch Run Expo Center in Birch Run, just west of Frankenmuth, MI, is in its fifth year but this was the first time I attended.

The Stitching Well quilt shop of Bay City, MI organizes the showcase, bringing together local quilt shops and quilt vendors in conjunction with a show including over 200 quilts by Mid-Michigan artists.

Here are some of the quilts that caught my eye.

Carnivale by Jeannie St. John is paper pieced

Rockin' Round Robin was made by Jeannie St. John and five other persons. 

Detail of Rocking Round Robin

Carolyn Pickard's Ewe-niquely Yours was her first wool applique!
The Back Street Quilt Shop of Bad Axe, MI offered this as a block of the month.

detail Ewe-niquely Yours

 The wool applique is 3-D. The detail is amazing.

Detail Ewe-niquely Yours

Star Bright by Bobbi Essex is a cheerful Modern take on a traditional pattern

Carol's Revenge by Valerie Stephens was a BOM quilt, full of fancy machine embroidery stitching.

Detail of Carol's Revenge

Hearts & Hands by Jeanne Robinson is a reproduction of a quilt from the
York County Heritage Trust collection, York, PA

Detail Hearts & Hands

Ladybugs for Kyler by Bonnie Gabriel and Garden Rows by Elaine Camp

I ran into a number of quilters I know from my weekly group and the local quilt guild, including Chuck Blanchard who had several quilts on exhibit, including Las Cruces.

Las Cruces by Chuck Blanchard

Detail of Las Cruces.  Constructed with machine applique and trapunto.

The Raven, a pattern from Blackbird Designs caught our eye. I may need to buy this pattern book! Each block was inspired by a line from the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

Sue Matlock's verision of Blackbird Designs pattern The Raven
included borders with 'Quoth the Raven, Nevermore'

There were so many great vendors with a huge variety of wares. I loved the Michigan inspired patterns and hand dyed fabrics at Windberry Studios of Milford, MI.

Windberry Studios patterns

Windberry encourages creativity

Windberry Studios preprinted fabrics and patterns

There were vintage quilts included in the show. Below is an embroidered Bird Life by Ruby McKim.

A 1988 Log Cabin made by Georgette Windler brought back memories of quilt fabrics and stitch-in-the-ditch quilting days.

This Depression era Wedding Quilt was made by Dora Begley for John and Margaret Gerlach's weeding.

The show had something for everyone. There was ample parking and easy access, no stairs, and all on one level in one huge room.

Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles

In July, 1964 my husband and his family took a vacation out West. He never forgot the "road that went into the lake" at Yellowstone National Park.  In 1959 there had been an earthquake that caused a massive landslide into a lake. The lake rose 22 feet, so that the roads that once went to the Cabin Creek Campground ended at the lake, and new roads had to be made.

The dirt road going into the lake is blocked off by pylons. The new road goes up the hill.
Yellowstone, 1964, photo by Herman L. Bekofske

Here he was, camping with his family in an area that had been hit by a killer earthquake in his time. It was memorable.

"Earthquake Lake," 1964. Photo by Herman L. Bekofske

Across the road was the canyon wall that caused the country's largest landslide ; it had buried nineteen people.

The mountain face that collapsed into the lake.
Yellowstone, 1964, photo by Herman L. Bekofske

The first chapter of Quakeland recounts the story of a family, just like my husband's, who had gone camping in Yellowstone. The author takes us through their day, searching for the 'right' camping spot, setting up camp, and getting ready for bed. And then we are taken through the horrendous experience the campers endured when the earthquake collapsed the mountain side, sloshed the lake back and forth, creating winds so strong it ripped the clothing off campers, and then deluged the area with a wall of water that drove a stick into a camper's knee socket. Afterwards the lake was 22 feet higher.

The mountain face that collapsed into the lake.
Yellowstone, 1964. Photo by Herman L. Bekofske

It's enough to make me grateful my folks never took me out West camping.

Quakeland is full of stories that will send shivers up your spine. Not only because naturally occurring fault lines that transverse our country cause quakes, which in our ignorance we have built upon--cities like Memphis and Salt Lake City--but also because of human activity that causes earthquakes: dams and mines and fracking and even building tall buildings.

I used to be pretty smug about my home state being 'safe'. We can be hit by tornadoes, but no hurricanes. We aren't known for earthquakes. Yet, Michigan has had its earthquakes and likely will again. There are fault lines in the Upper Peninsula, through the center of the state, and on the Lake Huron side in the "thumb." The state can be shaken by quakes from the New Madrid fault.

When our son was growing up we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to camp. We took day trips, apparently all along fault lines! One day we toured the Quincy Mine. This copper mine was effectively closed in 1946. We were almost the only ones there that day. The tour took us to the 7th level of the mine. In 1914 the miners working at the Quincy mine caused a rock burst. Any time we redistribute pressure the earth will respond. Mining is a human-created cause of earthquakes, and the Keweenaw mining area has a history of quakes.

The closed Quincy copper mine

The biggest earthquake in Michigan history, magnitude 4.6, occurred in 1947 near Coldwater, MI, a flat, agricultural area in Southern Michigan just above the state line. In 1994 the state was hit by a magnitude 3.4 quake centered near Potterville, just west of Lansing. And in 2015 a magnitude 4.2 quake was centered in Galesburg  just south of Kalamazoo. We have lived in Lansing, and a half-hour down the road from Coldwater and Kalamazoo. Four months ago a 2.2 quake occurred in Grosse Point, just east of Detroit.

So much for being 'safe' from earthquakes.

Miles style was entertaining and the information very accessible. Readers who enjoy learning about the natural world, disasters or potential disasters, and the implications of the energy industry's impact on our natural world will enjoy this book. Just be warned: this book may keep you awake at night.

I received a free book from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway.

Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake
by Kathryn Miles
Dutton
$28 hard cover
ISBN: 978-0-525-95518-4

I also recently reviewed The Great Quake by Henry Fountain about the 1964 Alaska earthquake, mentioned in Quakeland several times. Read my review at:
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-horrendous-1964-alaskan-earthquake.html