What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 This year my reading has slowed down.  I've checked out stacks of books, some of which I read and many that I don't.  I have many unread books in the book case.  I'm going to keep trying to keep BOTW weekly.

This season I've enjoyed three books about material culture.

The Wikipedia definition:   Material culture is most commonly used in archaeological and anthropological studies, to define material or artifacts as they are understood in relation to specific cultural and historic contexts, communities, and belief systems. Material culture can be described as any object that humans use ...

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 ...

 (This is the second catch-up book review post.  Look for BOTW to return later this month.)

"Spin" works two ways in this true-story novel.  Annie Kapchovsky did indeed take a spin around the world on a bicycle. That was back in 1894 and she did it to earn a $5000 prize. That would be enough to support her family (her Talmud scholar ...

 Reading is like breathing:  if I cease to do it then I will no longer be alive.  I assure you that I am very much alive and thus I have indeed been reading.  I just haven't been composing blog posts with book reviews.  I *will* get back on track in 2023.

 "Always remember to follow ...

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.  

I headed out last Thursday with my SIL, to a quilt retreat in Chesaning, MI.  The retreat was at Creative Passions.  We were in the basement of the big green house.  We love retreating there.  Our friend, Cori was not able to join us this year though and we really missed her!  Mary and I spread out our "stuff" and that was nice too.You can see my set up on the right.  Hers on the left and the