The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist

He spent his later life living in a cave, a vegetarian and animal rights activist who made his own clothing and traveled by foot. Yet his estate at his death in 1759 was valued at $117,000 (in today's dollars).

He was an early convert to abolition, causing disturbances that drove his Quaker meeting house to remove him from membership.

He was a dwarf who married another Little Person, Sarah, a well-liked Quaker preacher, while he himself was reviled for his extremism.

The Fearless Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker resurrects the forgotten man who dared to stand up to wealth and power with the message that all creatures are God's children, and that to own a slave is to be steeped in sin.

Lay went to extremes to get his message across. Lay had been pressuring a neighbor Quaker in Abington, PA over their owning a slave girl. One day Lay encountered the couple's son and invited him to his cave. When the distraught couple found their son with Lay, he chastised them saying, "You may now conceive of the sorrows you inflict upon the parents of the negroe [sic] girl you hold in slavery, for she was torn from them by avarice."

Without a formal education, Lay wrote a book that was printed by Benjamin Franklin. It was Deborah Franklin who commissioned a portrait of Lay, a gift for her husband. It resides in the National Portrait Museum.

Lay's book printed by Benjamin Franklin

This vivid portrait of a unique personality is interesting as history, but Lay's vision transcends the years, for his concerns remain with us to this day and are more relevant than ever. As society struggles with issues of wealth trumping morality, consumerism and its impact on the environment and human health, and the continual fight against hate groups that devalue certain human lives, Lay's life stands as an example of how to live according to one's values and one's faith.

I received a free book from the publisher through LibraryThing.

Read an excerpt at http://www.marcusrediker.com/books/benjamin-lay-detail.php

The Fearless Benjamin Lay
by Marcus Rediker
ISBN: 978-080703592-4
Publication Date: 9/5/2017
Price:  $26.95

Works in Progress, TBR Books, Sad News

Sunset from late October

Frost and cold arrived late this year in my part of Michigan. In October we watched people walking dogs in shorts and flip flops and then temps dipped into the twenties. This past week we had an Arctic Blast!

This week's last roses of summer--or rather, autumn

There are still green leaves on the apple trees, now curled and frost-bitten. We are waiting for the maple leaves to fall.

Now that summer's heat is over I am back to hand quilting my Austen Family Album quilt. I sure hope to finish it this year!

I made a lap quilt top to go into our living room, a pattern I previous made in a little larger size. In January I plan have my projects machine quilted. I can't keep up with quilting any more!

I picked the colors to match my newly upholstered 1930 club chair. A quilt friend made me matching pillows for my settees.

My grandfather Milo bought this chair in 1930

fabrics from Connecting Threads

Matching pillows

I found such lovely fabric called Neverland and was thrilled to find an Etsy shop with Marian Cheever Whiteside Newton's Story Book quilt pattern for Peter Pan! I plan to make some, not all, of the applique blocks and set them with pieced blocks made with the Neverland fabrics.

Peter Pan Story Book quilt pattern

Fewer books are published in these last months of the year. Look for my upcoming review on Elizabeth Berg's heart warming novel The Story of Arthur Truluv, and a sweet tale from Australia, A Hundred Small Lessons by Ashley Hay.

I am trying very hard not to put in too many requests for upcoming books. I have already read 158 books this year!

ARC from W W Norton: The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve

On my TBR shelf:

• Starlings by Jo Walton
• The Boat People by Sharon Bala
• Daphne by Will Boast
• As Bright as Heaven by Susan Meissner
• Gateway to the Moon by Mary Morris
• Lear by Harold Bloom
• Debriefing by Susan Sontag
• The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt

Books I won and am expecting:

• An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
• Endurance by Scott Kelly
• Winter by Karl Ove Knausgard
• The Book of Joe by Joe Biden and Jeff Wilser
• The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

ARC from W W Norton, The Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah

Reading now:

• To Lay Rest Our Ghosts by Caitlin Hamilton Summie (purchased book!)
• A State of Freedom by Meel Mukhejee
• Building the Great Society by Joshua Zeitz

I am also going to reread Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro this month for one of my book clubs.Book club selections coming up that I am looking forward to next year include Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, plus rereading Gilead by Marilynne Robinson and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Books to be discussed which I have already read include Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood, The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, and Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue--which my library club read last month! I likely won't need to reread those last three.

Bookish ARC win; review soon to come!

All the ebook reading has wrecked havoc on my eyes! I am glad to have 'real' books to read from Blogging for Books, giveaway wins, ARCs from publishers, and Bookish. It's easier on my eyes.

I also bought some great used books at the library book sale! I enjoyed Hannah Kent's The Good People, and I hear that her Burial Rites was even better--which must mean it is magnificent. I also snagged Zadie Smith's Swing Time!

My book sale finds

 My husband won a book club pack and we can't wait to use it! The author will Skype with the club! Hubby is in a mystery book club and also we will use it with the library book club.

Book Club pack win for Girl Waits with Gun

We are now without our two dear doggies. They both had cognitive dysfunction and were blind. After we had to let go of Suki, whose quality of life was no longer good, Kamikaze went downhill fast. They did everything together, helping each other remember to drink water, find their way around the yard, and they comforted each other when we were gone from the house.

Our dear Kamikaze, one of our last photos. She did not show her age.

Over Kaze's last months she became confused, slept all the time, and was restless at night. She had always slept very well before we lost Suki. Kaze was getting lost in the house and in the yard. I had to rescue her from under bushes and lead her home when she was waiting at the gate thinking it was the door to the house. Whenever we were out, and we only went away for an hour or so at a time, she waiting at the window, watching for our return.

We miss our girls so much!

We have had a pet for 44 years: a liter box trained bunny, two dachshunds, and four Shiba Inus. It is truly an 'empty nest' feeling we are experiencing.

our girls one year ago

The Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich

In a world of governmental breakdown, wars, and natural disasters, winters without snow, the over expansion of American government, something--perhaps a virus-- has tampered with genomes to set off a cavalcade of reverse evolution.

In this world lives one twenty-six year old pregnant woman, Cedar, writing to her unborn child. After an ultrasound, the doctor tells her to flee and go into hiding. Congress has revitalized articles of the Patriot Act to round up pregnant women, searching medical data bases, considering it an 'issue of national security.'

Cedar decides to seek out her birth parents on an Ojibwa reservation. Her adoptive parents warn her about an impending state of emergency. Siri and GPS no longer work, the world is falling apart. But Cedar is determined.

As she nears the reservation she sees a billboard. "Endtime at Last! Are You Ready to Rapture?," and another that reads "Future Home of the Living God."

Cedar had turned to Catholicism for an extended family. She writes and publishes a magazine "of Catholic inquiry." Jesuit theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin thought evolution was bringing humanity to perfection. But all creation is devolving, backward, to prehistoric forms. Is God asleep at the wheel? Has God abandoned Earth? Will the written word die out, incomprehensible to whatever humanity is becoming? Is humanity losing its spark of the divine, their souls?

Cedar's birth father is nonplussed. "Indians have been adapting since before 1492 so I guess we'll keep adapting." Cedar counters, "But the world is going to pieces." "It's always going to pieces," Eddy replies.

Aware of the beauty of the vanishing 'now', haunted by an unknown future, Cedar must hide from the  American Government, now the Church of the New Constitution, which is rounding up pregnant women, controlling who is bred and who is born, endeavoring to save humanity.

Louise Erdrich's novel The Future of the Living God  is many things: an extended letter to an unborn child, the story of a woman seeking her family, a fable warning of the over-extension of governmental power, a warning of the consequences of tampering with nature. It is a theological reflection and speculative fiction. And it is the story of resistance and the fight for self-determination.

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

Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich
On Sale Date: November 14, 2017
ISBN: 9780062694058, 0062694057
Hardcover $28.99 USD, $35.99 CAD

Miss Fisher, Queen of the Flowers

Queen of the Flowers, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries #14, finds the socialite lady detective solving the disappearances of several young ladies.

The carnival is in town, bringing old friends; several shady characters are looking for Rose--they are so vile the most vile bar has banned them; and Phryne is slated to be the Queen of the Flowers in the upcoming 1928 Flower Parade. Now, if only the Flower Girls would stop disappearing...

I have been watching the Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on Netflex as entertainment while hand appliqueing in the evening. The books are being published by Poison Pen Press and I thought it would be fun to read one.

Miss Phryne Fisher goes on the trail of her missing adopted daughter who has been searching for her birth father. Phryne is also hiding Rose, a girl who nearly drowned, and whose life is threatened. Phryne's investigations bring to light instances of abuse against girls, a professor's double life, and the workings of a gambling ship. The girls fight over a vacuous but angelic looking teen. All the gang appear: Dot and her beau Hugh, Detective Jack Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Butler, and Bert and Cec, and of course the ravishing Lin Chung.

I enjoyed the humorous authorial asides such as "Phryne had rescued the girls from slavery at considerable trouble and expense." When Pyryne checks out a lead and is asked about it she replies that  it was "Remarkably like being inside the Castle of Otronto without the giant hand, thought it might have put in an appearance later." I also loved her adage, "Guilt is a useless emotion and not to be indulged in."

I thought the book Phryne is very like the TV show one: well-heeled, confident, and nonplussed in the midst of danger. I did cringe a bit over her willingness to be considered her Chinese lover Linn's concubine ("Phryne, fortunately, liked being an amusement.") and her acceptance of prostitution as a welcomed career for impoverished girls.

It was an enjoyable, light read with wonderful historical ambiance and a definite Australian flair.

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

Queen of the Flowers: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries #14
by Kerry Greenwood
Poisoned Pen Press
Pub Date: Nov.7,2017
Paperback $15.95
ISBN: 9781464207785

From the publisher's website:

The circus is in town for St Kilda's first Flower Festival, which includes a parade. And who should be Queen of said Flowers but the Honourable Phryne Fisher? She has dresses to purchase, cinemas to visit, and agreeable cocktails to drink. 

However, one of her flower maidens is unstable and has vanished. So Phryne investigates, trudging through the underworld with the help of Bert, Cec, her little beretta, an old flame from Orkney, the owner of the most exclusive brothel in St Kilda, and several elephants.

But when her own adopted daughter Ruth goes missing, Phryne is determined that nothing will stand in the way of her retrieving her lost child.

White Wash: How Science is Corrupted by Business

Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science by Carey Gillam is an expose' of how Monsanto's pesticide glyphosate came to dominate the farming industry--and its product Roundup in suburban back yards--even when evidence of  its threat to human health and environmental degradation arose. It is the story of how chemical companies, not the federal governmental programs we believe protect us, drive policy and law.

Gillam is a career journalist who in 1998 was moved to Kansas to write about agriculture for Reuters. Previously she wrote about Hurricane Katrina and reported from race-torn Ferguson, MS. She spent a lot of time learning her new beat, talking with farmers as well as company executives at Monsanto and other chemical companies. 

Glyphosate was sold as the safest pesticide ever, a wonder product that would help farmers increase their yield. Monsanto then developed plants that were resistant to their pesticide, the GMOs we hear so much about. Farmers left behind the older ways, even ending crop rotation. Monsanto owned the marketplace.

As her research led Gillam to become concerned with GMOs, not accepting the 'desired narrative,' Monsanto-funded organizations pressured her editors to remove her! As Gillam tells it, "What I've learned, what I know with certainty, is that when powerful corporations control the narrative, the truth often get lost and it's up to journalists to find it and bring it home."

The result is this book.

This was a hard book to read--not just because of the density of information, but because it taught me that business runs more of government than we are aware of. It's not just lobby money. It's in the research they pay for and tweak and offer to the EPA as unbiased studies when decisions are to be made about public safety. And its about the professors and professionals they enlist to tell their story. 

Wheat field

I buy organic foods whenever possible. I have the luxury of being able to afford to make that choice. I am not an agricultural worker who is around chemicals that are associated with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the disease that took my father's life.

We did, for two years, live next to a farm field. There was a beautiful field of golden wheat when we moved in on a late June day. A few months later I sat on the back deck to watch the farmer cut the wheat.

Cutting the wheat

The next year he planted corn. Our dog loved to run down between the row of corn. We moved before it was harvested.

Sandhill Crane in the farm field

The Sandhill Crane came in pairs in the spring and over the summer we watched them and their young birds. In the autumn, after harvest, the Crane flocked to the field in the hundreds before flying South.

Sandhill Crane in the late fall

So when in the book I read about 'chemical drift', how the pesticides sprayed on the soil before planting or on the GMO crops before harvest are carried on the wind, I shuddered. Was the yard my dogs played in safe? What about my open kitchen windows, my bedrooms that faced the farm field? What was I tracking into the house on my shoes? I am ignorant about that farmer's use of pesticides.

And the Sandhill Cranes that came every year in the hundreds to eat the insects in the field? What is the impact of pesticides on the birds? We had Bald Eagles flying over the fields, looking for prey. On the other side of the field was a wet land, and also senior housing. I found a rare salamander in the yard once.

After we moved a family with a young child moved into the house. Will that boy's health be impacted negatively?

"Most of us are Guinea pigs in this horrendous toxic experiment."--from White Wash

I was taught in environmental biology that pesticides are poison, and not just harmful to the pests it was developed to kill. Gillam shows how glyphosate, which is combined with harmful chemicals to make it 'stick' to crops, impacts more than weeds. And it has created resistant weeds and has affected the soil.

I am continually appalled by all the ways big business has manipulated government. You should be, too.

White Wash is available in ebook form (ISBN: 9781610918336) at your favorite seller for $7.99 the month of November, 2017.

Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science
by Carey Gillam
Island Press
ISBN 9781610918329
PRICE $30.00 (USD)  

Mini Reviews: The Queen Reads and a Victorian Romance

Alan Bennett's short comic novel The Uncommon Reader was my local library book club pick of the month.

The plot involves the Queen of England stumbling into reading, a habit her family and staff do not approve of. As she becomes immersed in her books she becomes bored with her public life and neglectful in her dress. She begins to think, and that leads to writing. A dangerous past time for sure!

An early abettor in her hobby is a young gay staff member whose reading preferences inform his choices for the Queen. Later the Queen picks up books by people she met, or who were connected to titled families.

Authors and book titles are often dropped without the context of what the Queen thought about the books or how they specifically influenced her. We do know she did not care for Jane Austen, the late Henry James, or the early George Eliot. I wanted know more.

I was familiar or had read many of the books mentioned, but not all. Not knowing, for instance, Nancy Mitford's work it would have been nice to know a bit about the books and what the Queen liked and why. Without familiarity, it felt like I was missing an inside joke.

I did resonate to the Queen's interest in what people are reading. As a teen and young woman I always had a book with me, almost like a talisman which might draw other readers to me. I am afraid that for at least forty years I have judged people by the books they read. I am endlessly boring people about the books I am reading.

A charming, slight read with some laughs.

*****

The title of Mimi Matthew's novel The Lost Letter: A Victorian Romance tells you what to expect. It is a romance novel set in the Victorian Age in which a lost letter leads to the separation of true love. Each believes they have been rejected by the other.

I have been reading Mimi Matthew's blog (https://www.mimimatthews.com/blog/) for several years. It has high style, great writing, deep research on subjects relating to Victorian Age literature, history, and romance. I pre-ordered The Lost Letter.

Sylvia Stafford "was the first and only woman he had ever loved." Sylvia was so drawn to Sebastian Conrad she did not resist their mutual attraction, acquiescing to give him a lock of hair and even, gasp, a kiss! Then he was called to war.

Sylvia wrote Sebastian a letter of declaration, but received no letter in return. She taught herself to give him up. When her father's finances toppled and he killed himself, Sylvia was shunned by society.  Now on her own, she hired out as a governess.

Sebastian's sister, Lady Harker, has come to her door and requested that Sylvia pay her and her brother a visit. Sebastian has suffered brutal war injuries, and his sister implies that he is disconsolate. Only Sylvia can save him.

Informed by Beauty and the Beast with a touch of Jane Eyre, this romance has more misunderstandings and twists as the lovers misunderstand each other while fighting against their strong attraction. It is a charming read with just the right amount of historical detail.

Publisher: Perfectly Proper Press
Published: September 2017
ISBN-10: 978-0-9990364-1-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-9990364-0-2

I will be reviewing Matthew's next novel, The Viscount and the Vicar's Daughter soon!

1857 Album Quilt Top Finished!

When Gay Boomers of Sentimental Stitches saw an 1857 Album quilt it caught her interest. The original quilt was machine quilted. When she won the auction for the quilt Gay decided to draft patterns based on the 64 blocks and share them through her website.

1857 Album quilt top by Nancy A. Bekofske

Beginning in January 2016 Gay released several block patterns a month, free of charge. A Facebook page was set up so those who were making the quilt could share their progress.

Some of the first blocks from 1857 Album

I finally completed my quilt top. There is a border pattern available but I don't need a quilt that large. I have substituted some patterns with my own inventions.

I created the inkwell to reflect my interest in writing

The patterns are now for sale at her website at http://sentimentalstitches.net/free-stuff/block-of-the-month-quilt-designs/the-1857-album-quilt/

1857 Album block

It was interesting to have found a 1938 magazine article by Florence Peto with a quilt that is very similar to Gay's. The border Gay offers is similar to the one in the quilt in the article.

1857 Album block

I shared the entire article at https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/01/old-quilts-tell-story-by-florence-peto.html

I used green, red, and orange as my main applique colors

Here is the part of the article in which Peto describes the Houseman quilt:

"Although little verifiable biography enlightens the genesis of the merry Housman Quilt, the spirit of a locality animates it and it is vibrant with sentiment, symbolism, and the interests of a family. It was made in 1859, which is not old as quilts go. The present owner inherited it from an aunt whom she had seldom seen and she knows only that it was made in the Housman family which had Dutch ancestry; historical records show them to have lived on Staten Island as early as 1675. It is believed that some young son of the Housmans emigrated to Pennsylvania where he married a girl born and bred to German traditions. Being, therefore, well versed in local folklore, her patchwork took on the exuberant quality of a regional document which, at her passing, went to the Staten Island branch of the family.

The Houseman Quilt

"Occupying central position is the red calico homestead with building-stones, and chimneys embroidered in chain stitches; ornamental stitchery is so often seen superimposed on the appliqué work of Pennsylvania-made quilts, it is tempting to call it characteristic. On both sides of the date have been placed pineapples, domestic symbol of hospitality. One of them, pieced of tiny rectangular patches hardly as large as your own small fingernail, has acquired a remarkable realistic effect. Left of center are two formalized trees of life, a little stark and primitive, but often seen in this form on other pieces of local handiwork. On each side of the house are more naturalistic, fruit-bearing trees under whose branches cocks and hens strut and feed. Baby's hands, scissors, and the baby's cradle over which hovers the dove, in this instance symbol of innocence, suggest woman's occupations. The capacious coffee mug, fancifully inscribed "John Demorest" and the Masonic and Odd Fellows' emblems, indicate masculine tastes and interests. There is speculation in the meaning of the Punch-and-Judy-looking figures; they may be Grandpa and Grandma Horseman; one or both may have had the disconcerting habit of mislaying his or her spectacles. Under the debonair horseman in orange breeches and green coat, "Euphemia" is stitched in outline; there is sad implication in the little riderless pony, who, by the way, carries an English saddle.

"Of not so personal but more general interest are the flower forms. Left of the house is seen a conventionalized passion flower. The lute as a motif was often employed by music-loving people, while oak leaves (top row, right of center) bring to mind German songs and stories; it is written that in ancient oak groves Germanic forebears worshiped their gods and held their communal assemblies. In Pennsylvania the double rose, fuchsia, pomegranate, and tulip are constantly recurrent motifs in the adornment of dower chests, household utensils, and needlework.

"Your old quilt may be decorated lavishly with hearts or there may be just one tucked away unobtrusively in a corner; the presence of a heart or dove indicated a bride's quilt. In the Housman Quilt a circle of hearts has been arranged in a round patch. The Star and Crescent (upper right-hand corner of the quilt) painted on a barn was a potent talisman to ward off unfriendly spirits from cattle and still other symbols had the property to insure prolific increase. Left of the Star and Crescent is the St. Andrew's Cross; though more often placed in a circle, in this quilt it has been set in a square. The St. Andrew's Cross, sure protection against sorcery, was a favorite hex mark. For instance, a witch, placing her hand on a door-knocker into which the occupant of the house as previously had the foresight to cut a St. Andrew's Cross, would be rendered helpless and impotent. Tools and guns, so marked, never disappeared or behaved badly.

"In the Housman quilt a green leaf appliquéd close to the corner of each unit block becomes a group of four leaves when the blocks are set together; leaves cut in three lobes supply a pleasing border finish. this piece is owned and shown by courtesy of Mrs. Frank Carroll."

 I enjoyed working on this quilt for nearly two years! Now....to get it quilted!