What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Marie Benedict's latest novel again tells the story of women whose names we may know but whose lives we don't know much about.

Aristocratic, glamorous, on the verge of going broke -- the Mitford family could have been dreamed up by a satirical novelist except that they were very real. (And, actually, eldest daughter Nancy did thinly-disguise her siblings in two of her novels.) Diana, the third daughter, divorced her husband (heir to Guinness brewing) to marry Oswald Mosely, head of the British Union of Fascists. Unity, the third daughter, was enamored by Adolf Hitler and became part of ...

Graphic novels are not a format that greatly appeals to me.  That's a personal preference. I know they are very diverse, from traditional comic books to Japanese manga to original works of fiction and nonfiction, with titles appropriate for (and to appeal to) kids, teens, and adults.  They're all represented in my public library's collection.  (Said library being my former place of work.)

In 2016 a not-well-liked housekeeper at Buckingham Palace is found dead at the edge of the indoor swimming pool.  The  news makes its way to the Queen.   She is 90 and slowing down somewhat physically but not mentally.  She encourages an investigation that involves her Assistant Personal Secretary Rozie Ochoda.  The plot thickens when they learn that the dead woman began her career as an art historian inventorying the Palace art collection.  Why was she demoted?   The investigation is literally winding when Rozie goes down to the tunnels that connect the palace buildings.  The queen floats above it all, her ...

In the early 20th century the Franco-American Pelletier family arrived in Colorado to join their father/husband at the Moonstone marble quarry.  Daughter Sylvie tells the story of the terrible conditions for the quarrymens' families -- unheated, unplumbed shacks, far from town.  When she finishes school she gets a job as a reporter for the scrappy labor-friendly local newspaper.  The next summer she is hired as the secretary for the quarry-owner's (third) wife.  Sylvie sees first-hand the profligate luxury of the robber barons and is determined to work for justice for the working class.  Her life is complicated by the ...

 BOTW = Books of the Week -- what I've been reading lately.

Daneen Akers tells the stories of 37 of these saints in short biographies. Some are well-known (Florence Nightingale, Harriet Tubman, Francis of Assisi, Mr. Rogers). Some are lesser-known (suffragist Alice Paul, preacher Anne Hutchinson, civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, poet Mary Oliver). Others were new to ...

Christabel Seagrave, her stepsister Flossie, and her cousin Digby (who is Flossie's stepbrother) grow up at Chilcombe, their family's crumbling manor in the Dorset countryside. The adults (parents, a stepmother, and an uncle/father/stepfather in one, as well as a couple of permanent houseguests) leave them largely to their own devices though the servants (cook, butler, maid, and governess) look out for them.   

 In 1928 when Christabel is 12 a ...

A while back I decided it was time to revisit Port William, Kentucky, by reading or rereading the several volumes of Wendell Berry's stories I acquired many years ago.*  It was part of a resolve to read what was already on my shelves rather than adding more.

Almost three years after that grand declaration I've finally finished A Place On Earth, Berry's 1993 revision of the 1967 edition.  

 A Place on Earth is set in the spring of 1945, a pivotal time for the larger world and for the small Kentucky community.  Virgil Feltner is missing in ...

This Books of the Week post should more appropriately be Books of the Month.  I will get back to more frequent book reviews in September.  

 Two more ARCs (advance reading copies) from the ALA Annual Conference in June. These will be published in October.

The Wilfs have lived on Division Street in suburban Avalon since the late 1960's.   Ben is a family physician, Mimi is a community volunteer. Sarah and Theo are typical suburban teens. On a summer night in 1985 their universe shifts when Sarah and Theo Wilf cause a deadly car accident. They survive but they never forget. Nor does their Ben whose effort to save the victim is unsuccessful. 

 BOTW = Books of the Week. It's the new name for my weekly reading roundup.  

One of my favorite genres, narrative nonfiction, combines with one of my favorite subjects, American regional foodways, in a well-researched ...

Private investigator V. I Warshawski -- better-known as Vic -- is, as usual, supposed to be working for her paying customers when she gets caught up in a complicated series of coincidences. While out running she hears a cry for help and discovers a teenaged girl wedged in the rocks of the breakwater along Lake Michigan.  The girl is taken to the nearest hospital where she is treated -- and from which she disappears.  Finding the girl entangles Vic in a web of intrigue. Vic can never leave her south side neighborhood behind as this new case proves.  It involves a synagogue in ...

For some time I've wanted to separate the book recommendations in each Weekly Update post from the quilting news.  I've had trouble coming up with a good name for a book post. I've settled on Books of the Week (BOTW) and hope that will stick.