A Guardian And A Thief by Megha Majumdar

The title characters of Megha Majumdar’s second novel are a young man referred to only by a nickname, Boomba, and a woman known as Ma. Each regards themselves as a guardian, and the other as a thief. The reader is left to decide which is which or are they both. The book takes place in the near future, where climate change is wrecking real havoc. The course of events happen over what is meant to be the last week of Ma living in Kolkata. She, her father and her two-year-old daughter are about to join Ma’s husband in the United States, as the recipients of prized “climate visas”. Floods and extreme heat have turned Kolkata into a city of persistent food shortages. Black marketeers hoard eggs, fruit and vegetables, while fish, previously the cornerstone of Bengali cooking, has vanished altogether. The terrifying word famine is disinterred. This is one of the many ways in which climate change has sent Kolkata forward into the past. Something it is all too easy to picture happening here--the government wants the rich to get richer, there to be no rules for them, and to send women and people of color back a century. If not further. Boomba robs Ma, and a cascade of things follow. This is a short book that leaves you with a lot to think about.

Goodbye June (2025)

This movie has a lot of star power with three women actors that I love (Helen Mirren, Kate WInslet, and Toni Colette) in the starring line up. The story is not unique--a dysfunctional family gathering around the death bed of the mother and having to try to resolve long held grudges on a timeline out of their control. There is the hyperfunctioning sister who is all about the adulting, the younger sister who has got a mother Earth thing going on, the Yoga and Crystals sister, and the failure to launch brother. As the movie progresses the onion unpeels. It is more wooden than you would hope, but there is a lot to learn and think about and hopefully Winslet the director will improve.

So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)

This is a Parnasuss Book recommendation that is 100 years old, amazingly enough. It won the Pullitzer Prize and was apparently well loved when it came out. Selina is the mother and Dirk is the son--the story centers on the two of them. Selina is is persistant, and even when widowed, she keeps the farm and goes about making her way. SAhe wasnts everything for DIrk, and encourages him to aim high, educationally and vocationally--which he does, and he is quite successful at that. What he is not so successful with is love, and maybe Selina didn't role model well for him there, but Dirk basically wants what he cannot have when it comes to romance, and denies that it is an issue. THe other thing that happens here is that when the son moves away and experiences the big city and the modern world, it distances him from his mother--he doesn't try to set that right, and he wlso doesn't see what she is doing. She has become a sought after grower of asparagus, people are wowed by what she has accomplished, but DIrk is unable to see her that way, and they are inevitably seperated by it. The book was inspired by the life of Antje Paarlberg in the Dutch community of South Holland, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She came to AMerica in the mid-19th century, having lost her husband on the journey over from the Netherlands, and many of her children. It is a character of perserverance. It is not an uplifting read, but it is a window into American history.

Bold Blossoms by Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett (born 1937) is a world-renowned American-born artist and textile designer based in England, celebrated for his pioneering work in color-rich knitting, needlepoint, and patchwork quilting. Over a 50-year career, he has authored over 40 books, collaborated with designers like Missoni and Bill Gibb, and was the first living textile artist to have a solo exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum. I have signed up for the 2026 botanical block of the month club through Quiltfolk and he is one of the featured teachers. Given his age it seems like a good opportunity to see him interviewed and talk about his work and reflect on his career before it is too late but well into his artistic life and work. This book is a has a combination of needle point and fabric there are patterns for both quilts as well as needlepoint work. It has vibrant photography, featuring 25 projects (18 quilts, 7 needlepoints) inspired by floral designs. I would like to highlight the book's high-quality visuals and clear instructions, making it suitable for both, experienced and novice crafters. It acts as a comprehensive guide exploring color palettes and design processes. Kaffe is known for his knitting as well, but that is not featured in this book the highlights are looks at his fabric design which are large floral bright colored prints that are immediately identifiable as his work and very attractive this book is coffee table worthy but it is also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Children Of The Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

A little over a year ago China quietly ended its three decades of international adoptions. This cessation came almost a decade after China—again quietly—put an end to its one-child policy, which also lasted more than three decades. While reporting from China for the LA Times, the author uncovered some difficult truths about international adoptions in a country that was supposed to be the among the most ethical in the world. She weaves the histories of both China’s one-child policy and Chinese international adoptions into the story of a pair of separated twins, making for a thrilling narrative that is hard to put down. Identical twins Fangfang and Shuangjie were born in a mountainous village in Hunan province, the third and fourth children in their family. Fangfang, the older of the twins, was a healthy baby, but Shuangjie was a little sickly and needed more care. Fearful of the local family planning office, the twins’ parents worried that they would be caught and punished for having more than one child. They already had a second daughter after their first was born, but they worried they would have a difficult time evading attention with twins. So, they sent Fangfang to live with her aunt and uncle. The author writes about two scandals that plagued Chinese adoptions. The first involved individuals trafficking babies and toddlers, taking them from their homes and bringing them to orphanages. The second involved government family planning offices doing the same. Both the individual traffickers and the family planning offices made massive amounts of money “facilitating” these adoptions to foreign parents. It is hard to know how common this was, and with DNA testing a lot more is being uncovered, but this is a fascinating read.

Kaffe Fassett In The Studio

Ok, the writing in this is maybe not five star material, but it is very good, and the book goes about descibing in pictures and in words the life work of Kaffe Fassett and it does a spectacularly beautiful and broad sweeping job of it. I am taking a class which takes you into his home and studio through Quiltfolk--until I signed up for it, I did not realize just how actively he travels and teaches. He is basically a giant in the area of textile arts. He is an iconic fabric designer, and he works in needlepoint, knitting, and quilting. He has been a working artist for over 50 years and has been a prolific author as well. In 1988 he became the first living textile artist to have a one-man show at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The exhibition attracted such crowds that the Museum doubled attendance figures during the run and the exhibition toured to nine countries afterwards. This book takes you through his living space, which is one of the things I love to see--where people lived and worked. When I am on the road, those are intentional stops for me. Carl Larssen is a Swedish painter known for painting his family, and his home is adorned with painted doors and walls that are evocative of his work--the same can be said for Fassett's home. He worked on this book during the pandemic, when we were all home more or less, and has an intimate feel to it, maybe aided and abetted by the amount of time he spent there that year. If you are a fan, do not miss this--he even manages to include a few patterns, even though that is not what the book's primary aim is, and if you aren't, take it out of the library--you might become one. His fabric isn't exactly my cup of tea, but it is vibrant, distinctive, and I have used small bits of it in quilts to add pop and color. Truely a one of a kind artist.

Heiress Takes All by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

I have generally enjoyed the YA books that Reese Witherspoon has picked for her book club, and this mat very well hit the spot for the target audience, but I did not love it. A daughter, Olivia, who's father is marrying his 3rd wife has invited her to the wedding--she is a product of marriage number one, and when that ended, she and her mother were left penniless, withouth health insurance, and in dept. he mother has worked multiple minimum wage jobs, and Olivia is out for revenge. Ok, that is all understandable, but what I do not get is why her crew agree to help her with the plan to get the codes to her father's off shore bank accounts and transfer the fortune she sees as her birth right, but why would the rest of them aid and abet her? So once that disbelief is suspending we can move on. With the help of an eclectic crew of high school students and one former teacher, Olivia has plotted her mid-nuptial heist down to the second. But she didn't plan for an obnoxiously nosy wedding guest, an interfering ex-boyfriend intent on winning her back, greedy European cousins with their own agenda, or a vengeful second wife. When everything seems like it's going wrong, Olivia has to keep her eyes on what really matters: getting rich. It is slow going and a few plot twists along the way--which set us up for a sequel--and all does not turn out as hoped.

The History of Sound (2025)

This is a quiet movie, muted in both tone and cinematography, and while that sometimes drives me crazy, the slow lazy pace of it is suited to the material. The one thing that is not restrained is when they are going on about the music. And then it bursts with passion and pure emotion. The folk songs that provide the film’s spine spring from a deeply authentic place, infused with a love of storytelling and a yearning for connection with the past. It is is about the romance that forms between two men who find each other through their shared love of the timeless tunes from country people. One is from Kentucky and the other has visited the villages of England and they are deeply drawn to these often sad ballads. Because of the period when the story takes place, World War I, theirs is a love that cannot be. These two men who couldn’t be more different outside their mutual obsession with music. His story begins in 1910 Kentucky, where, in an opening voiceover (the wise, gravelly tones of Chris Cooper), we learn that young Lionel is a musical prodigy. He has perfect pitch; his mother sneezes, and he can name that note. His ability lifts him out of rural poverty and carries him to the elite Boston Conservatory to study vocal performance. After a brief separation when David goes off to fight in the war—“Don’t die,” Lionel orders as he leaves—they eventually reunite to travel throughout rural Maine, knocking on doors and recording the folk songs that families have passed down from one generation to the next. This section is the heart of the film and gives it real spark--the power behind the vocal performances is undeniable. From front porches and kitchen tables, the ability of music to transform and transcend is evident. Afterwards they head their seperate ways, with this time leaving a shadow across Lionel's life that he eventually needs to unpack, and what is revealed to him is sad and inevitable. The one thing that has stuck with me is that the story is told at a time when this music was under appreciated and catalogued, but that changed in my life time, thank goodness.

The Call of the Honeyguide: What Science Tells Us about How to Live Well with the Rest of Life by Rob Dunn

I enjoyed this book, and there are a lot of engaging stories told in it, but it is not ground breaking when read by someone with a life long interest and participation in science. It opens with a couple of interesting stories about inter species cooperation. The first is the one that the title of the book is derived from. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, birds known as honeyguides once used a specific call to lead humans to beehives so they could split the spoils of wax and honey. The other takes place in southeastern Australia, wild orcas partnered with Thaua people to hunt baleen whales. The Inca empire banned the killing of cormorants and pelicans whose droppings fertilized their crops. These relationships are known as “mutualisms,” and the author suggests such dynamics were once common and could be again in this thought-provoking and wide-ranging exploration of how different species interact in cooperative ways. This is particularly important to think about at a time when so many people are trying to break things rather than fix them. The United States in particular has become a pugilistic bully with a fascist leader bent on getting his way and trampling everything and everybody in his way--instead, diplomacy and cooperation have gotten us so much further and benefitted the greatest number of people. May we go the way of the Honeyguide.

Gradients in Quilting

Johanna Masko talked to our guild about how to think about, design, and operationalize gradients in our quilting. Use of gradation is a prominent part of modern quilting, and there are a lot of ways to think about it. One is the paint chip aisle at the hardware store. There each individual chip shows a particular starting color, and then what happens when you add more and more white to it, or conversely more and more black. This is a familiar and maybe one could say conventional way to look at gradation. Masko advocates thinking about it more broadly--she uses gradents in the background of this quilt, which moves across a large area, and then in each of the dresden plates, she uses it more subtly. I really like the details of her design process, and what she thought about as she was designing this and other quilts that she has made. A couple of take aways from her lecture for me was to use the color apps that are available in order to better train my eye to correctly identify the gradient--so if I want to incorporate it that I can do it right. The other was that when developing a quilt, to think about if this will be a part of the design or not, to think more intentionally about design, and to figure out not only where you are going, but where you want to go. Once again, I feel like the more I learn the less I know--that I figure out more of what I didn't know but am also more aware of the vastness of what there is to know.

All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett

I have spent some time during my recovery from shoulder surgery getting further along in one of my long term reading goals, which is to read most of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club selections. This is a pretty classic rags to riches romance--sort of. Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. She has an absent father and her mother recently died, so she is running on a mixture of adventure and grief. Her father is unsupportive of her plan to do a master's degree in British Literature in London. When she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach. Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Anna is sependent on tutoring for income, and she has happened upon a sweet gig, which is preparing students who want to study in the US for the SAT. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna's struggle to outrun her past. As any experienced reader of this genre could predict, there are some obvious pitfalls, but never fear, there are people in Anna's court who aren't put off by her impoverished past and who will help her.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006)

There was so much hype about the second installation in this coming 20 years after the first, and while I remembered liking this when I first saw it, I couldn't remember why, or really much about it, so while recovering from surgery and largely bed bound, I watched it again. Initially when I saw this it reminded me of a college friend who had interned for a year at Women's Wear Daily--which is down the fashion magazine rungs quite a ways from Runway (the magazine featured here) but the lifestyle, where you are on call 24/7, that your life is not your own, and that you are essentially enslaved for a year to an editor in exchange for an entree into a job in publishing that is more about your skill as a writer than as a personal assistant. Her stories and the story that unfolds here share a lot of the same qualities. The selling your soul aspect is the part I did not remember. Since the first time I saw this I have seen all the major characters (Tucchi, Blunt, Streep, and Hathaway) many times over, and have a lot of respect for their work, so fun to see this earlier work again, which was more at the beginning of a couple of their careers. Their work here couldn't have hurt. Overall, not having seen the second one yet, I would recommend a rewatch. It holds up well.

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

This is a multi-layered story, where on the one hand it is about dinner parties and petty rivalries, men and their bright resentments and wars against misfortune. It’s about affairs and empty wine bottles and quail with mushrooms and A.I. and animals and how the best poets read their work aloud. Underneath, it is much much darker. This is a world that hasn’t ended, exactly, but has outlived itself. Civilization persists, thinner and more tentative. The seas have risen, archives have vanished and England has splintered into an archipelago. Yet the survivors remain civil--ignoring the roving gangs that are not the least bit lawful. They read poetry, debate the nuances of a long-ago dinner conversation and stroll through their ruined but beautiful world. It’s a very British dystopia—measured, melancholy and devastatingly polite. Set in 2120, the novel unfolds in the aftermath of climate and nuclear disasters that reshaped the planet. Civilization has retreated inland; knowledge is fragmentary; universities now study “the literature of the inundation.” The protagonist, Thomas Metcalfe, is a professor of literature—not a soldier or revolutionary—who becomes obsessed with reconstructing a lost poem. In the end, you have to choose what to save, and for him, this is it. It is a puzzling and unsettling read.

Robert Bosscher: Pushing Boundaries

I am a bottomless pit when it comes to watching lectures on quilting in general and modern quilting specifically. This speaker is a frequent flyer at QuiltCon and several of my guild mates recommended him--I saw him in conjunction with Libs Elliot's Sew Squad. There were two main points that he covered--the first is what is modern quilting. You have to have a working definition of it before you can talk about pushing the boundaries of it. As you might imagine, there are a lot of ways to look at it, going all the way from close to traditional quilting, with some modification in pattern and fabric, all the way to pure are quilts. Then he launched into some of the artists that he enjoys following. My favorite amongst them that I know was Bisa Butler, which he calls an artist working in fiber rather than a quilter, which I agree with, and the favorite that I was unfamiliar with was Kaitlim Rim, who does exploded blocks in a whimsical manner. He is well worth checking out if you get the chance, and he talks about a lot of different things in the modern quilting realm.

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

This is the third instalment of the series, and I have to say that I am sorry to see the whole thing end, I have gotten to know this extended family, and am at the point where I feel like I can anticipate how each and everyone of them will react. The family comedy takes a more bittersweet tone, as the Shang-Young matriarch Shang Su Yi lies on her deathbed. Whereas the first two books lampooned the lifestyles of the rich and wealthy by presenting it through the perspective of an outsider thrust into that world, this installment discards the outsider’s surprise altogether and takes us into each character’s plans and motivations.  Whether it’s dealing with the potential loss of a loved one or fighting to keep the family’s legacy alive, and while their priorities are all messed up. It is a fun and relatable read.

The Royal We (2025)

There are, at this point, a seemingly infinite number of rom-coms about wayward princes and princesses from small made-up European countries that range from comfortingly mediocre to highly unwatchable. This one, which boasts not one but two fake fiefdoms, is both Hallmark Hammy and surprisingly self-aware and goofy, making it far more charming than expected. Plus, it has a whole plotline about its princess teaching girls leadership skills and kings conflict resolution, which really adds some oomph to its feminist fairytale kind of feel. I mean, please still keep your expectations entirely within check. In order to put to rest a 300-year-old feud between the kingdoms of Vostierrie and Androvia, Princess Coralina and Prince Desmond are set to get married, which will allow for the reunification of the Alsinian province and Castle Elora. Friends, that’s a LOT of silly names all squashed in together. Anyway, these two have basically been betrothed to each other since they were babes, so that when they wed the two countries can finally live in times of peace. Or that’s the plan until Princess Coralina ditches Prince Desmond and elopes with a plumber named Cody (Adam Woodward). As you can imagine, social media is all aflame about how you’ve “gotta love a man who can work with his hands.” You know who is not pleased by this? Well, both royal houses, obviously, but who is really peeved is Edwin, Prince Desmond’s butler/valet/main squeeze. The back up plan goes surprisingly well, and all in all it is a diversionary movie that was surprisingly fun.

We The People by Jill Lepore

This is it, the exhaustive look back at the US Constitution--well, not so exhaustive that it starts with the Magna Carta, and at no point does the author go back to what had happened in England that led up to England's colony rising up and breaking away--she really starts at the post war Constitutional Convention, and how we ended up with the mish mash that we got. The U.S. Constitution is among the oldest constitutions in the world—and one of the most difficult to amend. At what cost? In this landmark, lavishly illustrated book, Harvard professor of history and law Jill Lepore argues that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism. Challenging both originalism and the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation, Lepore argues that the framers never intended for the Constitution to be kept, like a butterfly, under glass, but instead expected that future generations would be forever tinkering with it, improving the machinery of government. The argument against "originalism" is the best part of the book, where she refers to to the writers of the constituion said about it at the time--and that the Federalist Papers were published in a newspaper well after the constitution, and were not even generally available until the last 20th century. These originalists just basically made that all up and nobody fact checked them. At the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding and in an account as radical as Charles Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the United States, Lepore offers a sweeping, lyrical, and democratic constitutional history, telling the stories of generations of Americans who have attempted everything from abolishing the Electoral College to guaranteeing environmental rights, hoping to mend America by amending its Constitution.

Sarah Goer Quilts

My quilt guild had a spring retreat that happened two weeks after I had should replacement surgery on my dominant arm. I did not sign up for it, appropriately worried that I would not be able to participate, but then 5 days ahead I got my brace off and was just in a sling. When I asked if I could sew, the APP seeing me saud "Sure." Things were looking up! The next day they were again dashed, because my physical therapist said that I could do nothing that essentially required me to shrug for several weeks, if not months, and surely sewing was again off the table?? I got an adjustable table that made typing at least possible, and waited.

The day before the retreat I decided to pull the trigger. The cost was modest, and I knew I could at least attend the lecture--which was with this improv quilter--this was such a gentle gateway into how to start improving, I really loved it. She does teach some on line classes, and I will definitely consider them once I am two handed again. The retreat itself went well. It turns out I mostly sew left handed--not sure I could sew without the left, but sewing with an impaired right was quite doable. I had cut out my BOM and not gotten it together and managed to finish that month and start the next. I also won a door prize of essential notions and so the cost of the retreat was practically nothing, and the abilty to spend a whole day with my guild mates was both fun and distracting. Two thumbs up!

The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King

This was another miss for me from the Reese Witherspoon book choices--which is not the norm at all, but I am on an unfortunate streak. The Phoenix Pencil Company is essentially told via diary entries, whether electronic, handwritten, or magically recorded, split primarily between two perspective characters. One is a contemporary computer science student, working with a professor to code an app that connects people based on common interests expressed in social media posts and diary entries. The other is her grandmother, who had worked alongside her mother, aunt, and cousin at a magical pencil factory during World War Two before immigrating to Taiwan and eventually America. When the app puts one of the leads in contact with another university student who had met her grandmother’s cousin, it triggers frantic remembering on the part of her grandmother and a bit of romance on her own part, with both stories heavily seasoned with difficult questions about the ethics of privacy and preservation. There are a lot of good points about the story, and it is written competently, but it just didn't hold together for me.

Champagne Problems (2025)

This is a movie of the lightest variety--a romantic comedy that is heavier on the romance than the humor. I chose it because I am recovering from a choulder replacement on my dominant side and the inactivity has been quite challenging for me. Initially I read incessantly, but that got my brain revving along at a rate that was uncomfortably fast while my body was geared more for slow living. This fit the bill. The story line is entirely predictable and really, that is what I was going for. It is set in a French vineyard, and that was a definite plus for me. The timing is pre-Christmas--for some reason, a plot that revolves around a take over of a beloved company right before the holidays, where the person who goes to do the taking over seems to have no family obligations and no concerns about gettinmg back home on time--which is inevitably not going to happen--is a recurring plot line. In any case, this hit the spot, in the midst of working my way through some short listed international movies, which are weightier and require more bandwidth in terms of attention than I have had at times in the recovery process.

City Of Night Birds by Juhea Kim

I would not have found this book without it being a book of the month choice, and it is books like this that keep me reading the Reese Witherspoon choices. This is a story of what it means to be a performer, what might motivate those who choose that life, and what happens when it all comes crashing down. The added layer in the case of a ballerina in a culture that has many restrictions on it is the privledge that such talent afforded the performer. Here is the story-- Prima ballerina Natalia Leonova was once celebrated across the world, her signature bravura in demand on stages from St. Petersburg to Paris to New York. But at the top of her career, an accident forces her into sudden retirement. Injured and alone, she turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past, still haunted by her relationships with two gifted dancers, Dmitri and Alexander. These men were responsible for her soaring highs, her darkest hours and, ultimately, both played their part in her downfall. So when Dmitri resurfaces with a tantalising offer for Natalia, she must decide what she is willing to sacrifice in order to dance again – and for the chance to return to the great love of her life. Painting a vivid portrait of a world in which ruthless ambition, desire and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with profound intimacy and breathtaking scope.

Andrea Tsang Jackson: Transparency

I watched a lecture given by this artist, who trained as a gemologist, and who has translated that into quilt blocks for all 12 of the birth stones--using just 5 fabrics to create the gem effect--reallt remarkable, but that is not all. She does large public art instillations that are quilt inspired, and the lectire I listened to was one where you use on like color tools to get a transparenct effect, which was mind blowing. When I see those quilts in the transparency category at QuiltCon I thought they did it themselves, and maybe some of them do, but you do not have to guess--you can feed in the two colors that will cross paths in your quilt and it will tell you the color that would result in sucha a mixing. More on that later when I play with it a bit. More on this artist first. This is her artist statement: Andrea Tsang Jackson is a Canadian-born textile artist of Chinese descent based in Kjipuktuk / Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her work takes the traditional craft medium of quilting and applies it to a contemporary context, often using bright hues and bold graphics. She abstracts intentionally accessible imagery, inviting points of connection from the viewer to spark discussion and inquiry. Clean and crisp, vibrant but not loud, Andrea’s work uses solid-coloured commercial fabrics, found textiles, hand-dyed and painted fabrics, and more recently Tyvek. Andrea’s work often celebrates community and collaboration, and explores ideas of home and belonging. The rich history of quilting also heavily influences her practice; she sees it as an extension of community across time. Andrea strives to push the limits of the quilting medium — and other textile media — by exploring scale and dimension and moving traditionally domestic objects into the public realm. Through her public art in recent years, Andrea’s work has explored the translation of textiles into other media – drawing, architectural mesh, and acrylic carving. This act of translation continually poses questions of what textiles mean to us as communities and how textile work exists outside the home. The boundaries around folk art, fine craft and fine art are a continual source of enquiry in her practice as she operates within all of these areas.

Art Quilts of the Midwest by Linzee Kull McCray

I have an I am in the midst of a big house organization project and discovered this book amongst other things in a box and realized that while I had bought it I had never read it. That was a mistake. This is a really interesting approach to organizing quilters and their work. The author explored how deeply fiber artists were influenced by their surroundings. Focusing on midwestern art quilters in particular, she put out a call for entries and nearly 100 artists responded; they were free to define those aspects of midwesterness that most affected their work. The artists selected for inclusion in this book embrace the Midwest's climate, land, people, and culture, and if they don't always embrace it wholeheartedly, then they use their art to react to it. The emphasis in this book is on the art. These artists are not known as quilters at least in the modern quilting world. There are a lot of interesting techniques that are on display here and this and this book is inspirational if you are thinking of adding a an artistic embroidery or dyeing or printing component to your personal quilting.

People We Meet On Vacation (2026)

This is a romantic comedy that is lifted directly from the pages of an Emily Henry novel of the same name. One of my kids who has read these along side of me noted that he thought that over time they seemed a little boring, and what I think is that there is a need to suspend belief in order to roll forward with the central premise, and this story is no exception. Told in a nonlinear format, we follow frenetic travel writer Poppy she tries to get her groove back when her job is no longer fulfilling. We soon learn that the heart of the problem lies with her college best friend, the introverted Alex. Ever since meeting cute in college when Poppy joined Alex on a road trip from Boston College back to their hometown of Linfield, Ohio, one summer, the two have spent one week a year on vacation together, both unable to share how they really feel about each other. When Alex finally breaks off with his on-again, off-again high school sweetheart, Sarah (Sarah Catherine Hook) before his brother’s wedding, Poppy impulsively decides to shirk off a work trip to attend the wedding in Barcelona, and possibly finally admit her true feelings for Alex, to him and to herself. The endless approach/avoidance that happens here is tiresome and also hard to believe that people who have been friends the length of time these two were wouldn’t communicate better. In any case it does adhere closely to the book.

The Fate Of The Day by Rick Atkinson

I read a review of this book that the writer had been reading this author's military histories for years and years--and maybe that was because they took years and years to come out. I had to laugh because this is meant to be the middle book of a trilopy but took over 5 years to be published after the first, and hope he manages to get through the third! Always seems like you should be pretty close to having it in the bag if tou announce how mant there will ultimately be. In any case, this volume covers 1777 to 1780 and goes through the uncertain future of the Revolution as the American Colonials faced defeat after defeat, super-cold winters (including one that could be said to have almost ended the rebellion at Valley Forge in 1777-78), and an ineffective Congress. In these middle years of the war, only a fateful victory at Saratoga, and the ill-fated occupation (and then withdrawal from) Philadelphia by the British, lifted American hopes that the British could actually be defeated. Otherwise, money shortages, shortages of ammunition and supplies, and deserting troops made American defeat very possible. The reader gets the sense of how back and forth the momentum was, how many mercenary soldiers were employed, and how tenuous the rebel position was. There are no whitewashes, and George Washington is presented as a troubled and flawed figure who wasn’t always the best general but who was doing as much as he could to bring the army together when he didn’t get much support from Congress. Other figures, both American and British, are given fresh looks. Nobody is a complete angel or devil. Instead, these figures are three-dimensional people with their own sides being presented as well as how others viewed them. Atkinson also doesn’t shy away from the darker areas of American history. Slavery and how slaves took part on both the American and British side, are well-represented in a clear fashion. Native Americans mostly fight with the British and the reasons why are fleshed out--and may have fueled future conflicts. Overall, this is very much a military description of this time period, with interesting back stories fleshed out but are not at the center of the story. Brace yourself, there is a lot of carnage.

Jay Kelly (2025)

This is complicated, and while it may not represent the experience of those in the movie industry, the director and writer Noah Braumbuch, at least knows what he is talking about. He and his spouse have had various roles in movies, and they both make smart and insightful films. In this one we focus on a man in the middle of a crisis of sorts. He worries that he doesn’t have one, only the personalities which fictional characters and the glory of celebrity have granted him. It’s pretty meta, a movie that uses as its foundation what we know of its star, George Clooney, one of the few leading men who can coexist in the same frame with images of legends like Paul Newman and Marcello Mastroianni and we don’t immediately reject the idea. Clooney knows a thing or two about not being able to walk through public spaces without being mobbed and, one presumes, about how much the life of an actor pulls people away from other things in their lives, like friends and family. He is struggling on all levels, and as a result he becomes a bad friend, a bad parent, and a bad employee, all the while not really figuring it out. My advice? Therapy and also what Clooney himself has done, sought aspects of a more normal family life to help add layers of human interactions to his otherwise storied life--and to try not to take yourself too seriously.

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

I have enjoyed a couple of other of historian David McCullough's books, and think he is a good story teller. This biography, which is not just about Wilbur and Orville, but also about the family that nurtured them and the time in which they lived, is fascinating when considering the components in the story that led to their ultimate success. It starts with their parents. Susan Wright was the daughter of a carriage maker. Growing up in her father’s workshop she had learned to design and build things. It was she who taught the boys to notice how things worked, how to draw out plans for things before building them, and how to use tools. She taught them about wind resistance when they were designing and building a sled together. Their father encouraged them to explore as well. Another thing that makes this book interesting is the way it illustrates how one project or invention led to another. First it was building a sled. Then they built a rudder to steer it. When the snow melted they built a wagon using wheels from discarded tricycles. Next they built and flew kites. Next, a chair for their mother. When it became Will’s job to fold copies of the newspaper their father edited and their church published, they invented a machine to fold the newspapers. Next was a toy helicopter, then a printing press. Since a printing press is useless without something to print they began a newspaper, The West Side Tatler. They sold advertising and saved all their profits. Then they needed bicycles to deliver the papers, so they built them out of discarded bicycle parts. They became more interested in building bicycles than writing and selling newspapers so they opened a bicycle shop. You can see where this is going. It’s a good lesson for us mothers on how children’s interests, when nurtured in the right kind of environment and with the guidance and encouragement of an understanding parent, can lead those children into successful careers. I love the way this book shows that this invention of an airplane, which changed the world and the future of everyone in it, was something that grew out of the skills and interests and habits learned within the context of their family. The author does not explore the question of whether of not the brothers were neurotypical, but I suspect at least Wilbur was not--and the importance of that for fostering innovation now and in the future.

Bad Guys 2 (2025)

I watched this in the immediately pos-op period from a joint replacement, so my standards for what I would find entertaining might have been more generous. Even so, I cannot recommend this beyond diversionary animation. This is the second installment, and as so often happens, enemies in the first movie end up as love interests in the second. There is a reappearance of the whole gang, both the good guys and the bad guys, so if you are a fan of sequels, this ticks all those boxes, and truly, if you likes the first one you are likely to fall for this one as well. If you missed the first in the series, this is a movie about a crew of fun-loving criminals who also happen to be animals, maintains the pizazz of its sleekly angular visual style. And the game voice cast returns, led by a reliably roguish Sam Rockwell. But increasingly, the antics feel strained, and the action grows needlessly complicated. The reason everyone winds up in space is especially convoluted. Even in the wake of the successful Artemis mission this month, this was not what I would call a fun animated movies that takes you yo outer space--and 2025 had some other and better choices.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

This is a Parnassus "if you haven't read it, it is new to you" recommendation--I have to say that every time I think that I am an above average reader, something comes along to knock that sentiment right out of my head, and these recommendations that Ann Patchett and her friends make are almost 100% books that I not only have not read, but very often have not even heard of. This is a short, humorous and poignant novella that is ostensibly about Queen Elizabeth II developing a passion for reading after her corgis lead her to a mobile library, changing her worldview and disrupting the routines of the monarchy as she discovers the joy and subversive power of literature. The book follows her journey from a dutiful monarch to an avid reader, aided by a kitchen porter named Norman, much to the alarm of her staff, and explores themes of literature's ability to change lives and question the status quo. The subtext, for me, is about what reading can and will do to you if you spend enough time doing it--no wonder the alt right wants to ban all these books, because when yo read, your mind is opened up to all sorts of ideas and where you go with them is anybody's guess (parenthetically, you would basically have to ban all books in order to better control the thought pathways that people undergo when they read)--and this book is about the power and the danger in that.

Laura Hartrich: Liner Notes and Labels: Learning to Love Quilt Documentation

This artist presented her case for upping your documentation game to my quilt guild, and she made a great case for both why you should do it and how you can do it. I took a class with her at QuiltCon 2025, jusy monthd after one of her children had committed suicide and her quilt about them was in the show. So, emotionally complicated and she did not hide behind the messiness. Instead she disclosed, talking about how she was struggling with it. She is a storyteller and no all stories have hsppy endings. She taught me about more than a fast way to embroider letters that dat.

Laura Hartrich is an award-winning quilter who lives in Oak Park, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, with her family, and she graduated mid-career from a master’s program in occupational therapy. Her work explores themes of reflection, acceptance, time, and memory, and is driven by a deep love of color, texture, and meaning. A documenter of her life from a young age, she immediately connected with the tradition of labeling quilts and has been a dedicated labeler ever since. When she speaks about quilt labels, she emphasizes motivation over technique, believing that while many strong techniques exist, labels are often neglected without the right mindset. She is passionate about sending her quilts out into the world with their stories firmly attached, an idea that resonates deeply with many other quilters. Her key is to journal. She likes to do it long form, but you can do virtual, but the key is excessive documenation and then translating some of to the quilt label.

Woman Of Interest by Tracy O'Neill

The pandemic was like a flood--disasterous for everyone but not an equal opportunity disaster. Those of us in healthcare were run ragged and many of us saw severe suffering. Others were given a lot of time to think, and that is what happened with this author. She was born in South Korea in 1986 and adopted as an infant by an Irish-American couple. Raised in New England, she was not surprisingly taught to love the one you are with, that family is who you choose and not where you came from. Until she was thirty-three, she hadn’t given much thought to learning more about the woman her adoption papers named as Cho Kee Yeon. But during the lockdowns of spring 2020, O’Neill — gripped by the thought that her birth mother might be dying alone in Korea. This is another great story about the power of DNA. For centuries people could lie about it--mostly men who wanted to avoid admitting to infidelity or accepting responsibility for paternity. Now that is simply not possible, and the author uses her DNA to find her relatives and tries to connect with her birth mother.

The Secret Agent (2025)

The disappearance of people believed to be dissidents in Argentina in the late 1970's and early 1980's was well known to those of us who live in North America, albeit after the facts. There are still people protesting that part of their history in Buenos Aires to this day. The fact that is happened in Brazil as well was not known to me. The film I'm Still Here details the mostly true story of a high profile Brazilian who was killed by the government and his wife went to great lengths to prove that. This one is a little different. Set in 1977 Brazil, roughly at the midpoint of a 21-year military dictatorship, this is a drama, a satire, an intriguingly laid-back espionage film, and a recreation of a time and place, with expressionistic and surreal flourishes that must be accepted on their own terms. Wagner Moura stars as Marcelo, a tall, bearded fellow with gentle energy and sad eyes. He arrives in Recife, the state capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, in a bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle. We don’t know why he’s come to Recife. We won’t know for a long time. You have to pick up on subtext in order to understand certain conversations. Marcelo and the other characters in his orbit try to avoid saying exactly what they mean, because someone might be listening. There is a casualness to the killing that I think is probably a true capture of what happened, and is what we are experiencing in 2026 in the United States with ICE, where people are being dissapeared without warrents, cause, trial, or due process. It can happen antwhere and at any time.

To The Moon And Back by Eliana Ramage

This is a book that is one of Reese Witherspoon’s book of the month choices and I have been slowly but surely reading my way through those. This one I found to be a little confusing period I read it over several weeks so in bits and pieces and that may have been a contributing factor. In the end I was glad that I read it especially when you consider um that there are very few Native American authors writing fiction. Thirteen-year-old Steph Harper knows she is different from her friends and classmates living in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, in 1995. Determined to be an astronaut, she notes, “I only had about a decade or so to rid myself of every fear I had left,” replacing them with what NASA calls “awareness and preparedness and disaster response protocol.” Steph’s single-minded drive forms the heart of a drama that unfolds from those teen years through 2027 while deftly exploring Cherokee identity, queer love and the price of ambition. Steph’s father, whom she, her mother and younger sister Kayla fled eight years ago, instilled in her a love of space while warning her about the end of the world. Those mixed emotions and strengths end up dictating the course of Steph’s life in wildly unpredictable ways, especially when endless obstacles seem to stand in her way. She is surprised to fall in love with a Cherokee college classmate, Della Owens, who as a baby was adopted and raised by a Mormon couple, and, after a highly public custody battle, allowed only one day of visitation a year with her birth father. While Della fully embraces her Cherokee heritage, Steph focuses on escaping to space.

No Other Choice (2025)

This Korean film was short listed for the 2026 Academy Awards in the Foreign Language category, and in my mind the Koreans can give the Danes a run for their money when it comes to dark dark comedy. It does not get bleaker than this. It opens in happier times for Man-su and his family, including a supportive wife, Lee Mi-ri, two beautiful children, Si-one and Ri-one, and two gorgeous dogs. As they celebrate their perfect lives outside of their perfect home, storm clouds appear on the horizon. The symbol becomes real when Man-su is downsized from his paper company, forced back into a brutal job market. Man-su realizes that the only way to beat the competition for the job he wants is for them to be unable to apply for it, so he puts in motion a series of plans to literally eliminate his competition. What starts as relatively playful and almost silly, a tone enriched by Lee’s layered performance that mingles Man-su’s desperation, intelligence, and broken pride, eventually gets much darker, but also angry, a commentary on what happens when fragile masculinity is fractured by corporate greed. Something has to give. And it does. This did not make the final cut to be nominated, but it is well worth seeking out.

A Witch's Guide To Magical Inn Keeping by Sangu Mandanna

This is not my typical genre of book, but one of the multiple things that I like to do as a reader is to read somewhere around half of the New York Times 100 Notable Books each year. They are about half fiction and poetry, half non-fiction, and while I mine the list for non-fiction ideas (I need the help in that arena, and try to read at least some no-fiction, even though it is not my first love), I tend to read more fiction. In any case, that is where I found this, which I would call a cosy, romance fanatsy. Sera Swan used to be a magical prodigy—Guild golden girl, full of promise—until she did the unthinkable: resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine (and, accidentally, a rooster). The Guild exiled her, stripped her magic, and left her to piece her life together. Fifteen years later, she’s running a magical inn that only appears to people who need it, surrounded by an oddball mix of humans and magical misfits. Then Luke Larsen, a prickly magical historian, shows up with his little sister Posy. Luke might just have the key to restoring Sera’s magic—if she can convince him to help without attracting the Guild’s attention. What follows is equal parts mystery, magical hijinks, and slow-burn partnership between two stubborn people who are much better at helping others than accepting help themselves. It all works out in the end with a few bumps along the way and while adequately charming, it did not win me over to the genre.

Nuremburg (2025)

There are countless variations of the saying “history repeats itself.” Nuremberg is a movie that wants us to remember. The story revisits the final days of World War II and the Nuremberg trials. The movie begins with Göring attempting to flee at the end of the war before being captured by Allied forces. We see him, along with other leading figures from Hitler’s inner circle, taken into custody. Douglas Kelly, played by Rami Malek, is brought in to create psychological profiles of these men. In the background is the effort of Justice Robert Jackson, played by Michael Shannon, who believes these men must stand trial for their crimes. He argues that they should not simply be executed. There must also be a public accounting for the horrors carried out in the name of the Third Reich. It is interesting that they brought a psyc Russell Crowe’s Göring is charming to the point of being almost disarming. We watch the two men talk and probe one another. Kelly is writing a book about what he is learning from Göring and the others. His questions cut to the heart of how such atrocities came to be. When Kelly asks why he followed Hitler, Göring describes a devastated Germany after World War I, a nation humiliated and made to suffer. Hitler told them that foreign powers were feasting on their pain and promised that Germany could reclaim its former glory. He made them feel proud again. Kelly’s obsession with Göring becomes his downfall, costing him his position, but not before Göring is put on trial. We watch Göring skillfully maneuver through Jackson’s questioning. Despite its flaws, there is something worthwhile in Vanderbilt’s attempt. Kelly eventually wrote his book. It revealed that what occurred in Germany could happen anywhere. The perpetrators of Nazi crimes were ordinary people who embraced a message that told them walking over the bodies of others was worth obtaining power. No one wanted to hear thst warning, and here we are, back at the beginning again.

Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick

Ok, first off, if you are looking for a book about Elvis the man, you are not going to be happy with this. While it is densely researched, it ends in the late 1950's--it really is about how it all got started . It is based on hundreds of interviews and nearly a decade of research, it traces the evolution not just of the man but of the music and of the culture he left utterly transformed, creating a completely fresh portrait of Elvis and his world. This volume tracks the first twenty-four years of Elvis’ life, covering his childhood, the stunning first recordings at Sun Records (“That’s All Right,” “Mystery Train”), and the early RCA hits (“Heartbreak Hotel,” “Hound Dog,” “Don’t Be Cruel”). There’s more to this book than Elvis. It’s also the story of the American music industry in the 1950s. There is alot about how music was made and marketed at that time, and how rock n roll changed it. It wasn’t just about the sound but about how the music was actually sold. For example, how going on near-constant tour to small music venues was considered the best way to market yourself. The chapters about how Elvis’s manager, the Colonel, got him onto television and how television really started to change the music industry were fascinating. I heard and read a lot of the very bad things about the Colonel. This book really brought to light the why. The Colonel may have taken a much larger percent (25%) than was usual (10%), but he also had a great business mind and really got things done. It was the Colonel who got Elvis on television and in the movies. I’d always thought the Colonel pushed Elvis into the movies but this book showed from its extensive interviews that Elvis himself was quite interested in being like James Dean. The relationship, at least at the beginning, was a lot more give and take, and then inevitably it deteriorated, as did they.

Hamnet (2025)

Chloé Zhao is a master at translating a book into a movie. I was very impressed with her adaptation of Nomadland and this is even more impressive. Maggie O'Farrell's book comes to life in this movie in a in a beautiful and cinematic way. I don't often say this but while I loved the book the movie was more emotionally on target. In addition to being a visually stunning, emotionally devastating movie it is also a deeply sensorial exploration of grief, anchored by exceptional performances from Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal. This is the story of William Shakespeare at home. This comes from a work of fiction but attempts to explain both Shakespeare's attraction to a woman who is uneducated as well as to hypothesize the egis for his one of his greatest plays. Agnes, is the daughter of a forest witch, and her connection to the earth, the trees, and the sky feels tangible and powerful. She meets Will --who will eventually turn out to be The Bard—their connection feels just as alive and free. They frolic and flirt joyfully, and the qualities that make her an outcast to everyone else make her wonderful to him. In no time, they’re married, then have a daughter named Susanna, and then twins: a boy and a girl, Hamnet and Judith. They have a blissful home life when Shakespeare is home and this is shattered when Hamnet dies. The grief that they that he experiences leads to the tragic play Hamlet.

Missed and Loved by Susie Boyt

This is another one of the “it's Friday and if you haven't read this it's new to you” book recommendations. This is the story of basically getting a do over in life. Ruth is a woman who believes in and despairs of the curative power of love. Her daughter, Eleanor, who is addicted to drugs, has just had a baby, Lily. Ruth adjusts herself in ways large and small to give to Eleanor what she thinks she may need—nourishment, distance, affection—but all her gifts and interventions fall well short. Eleanor an her partner are heavily using as well as largely ignoring their baby. After someone dies of an overdose in Eleanor's apartment building , Ruth hands her daughter an envelope of cash and takes Lily home with her, and Lily, as she grows, proves a compensation for all of Ruth's past defeats and disappointment. Love without fear is a new feeling for her, almost unrecognizable. Not everything goes perfectly well but it goes well enough and that is just perfect for Ruth. I really enjoyed this book and it is on the short side, something that can be read in an afternoon or two.

Last Days On Lake Trinity (2025)

This short documentary was shortlisted in that category for this for the 2026 Academy Awards. South Florida is facing a housing crisis, and that is one focus that this documentary brings to light. In March of 2022, Trinity Broadcasting Network, who owned the land, informed residents of Lakeside Park Estates that they had until December 31, 2022 to move out. Cooley centers on three women–Nancy Sanderson, Laurie Laney, and Nancy Fleishman–as they begin their hunt for another place to live after, it appears, that the county cannot combat TBN’s order. There are three things that I noticed watching rather than listening to this story. The 1st is that the place that they have which is waterfront is very beautiful and would be very hard to replicate. The second is that the mobile homes that these women live in are well beyond their sell by date. They are living in conditions that would be condemned I believe and then the third is that they have very few financial options and so this is a story of David and Goliath where the corporation holds all the cards. At the beginning of the film, Laney tells us that her first big purchase was her mobile home, but the real sense of belonging came within the community of Lakeside. Community and the collective experience is at the heart of Trinity. Fleishman worked off and on for TBN for years, and the silence from the company is troubling, especially when she calls to speak to someone about following up on the help they allegedly said they would provide.

Throwback by Maureen Go

I picked this up because it is a YA pick for Reese’s book club and I have very much enjoyed her selections. Priscilla, a first-generation Korean American and former high school cheerleader, expects her daughter, Sam, to pursue the All-American dream. But Sam isn't interested in the clichéd high school experience; she's a modern Gen Z teen. After a huge argument, Sam is transported back to the '90s alongside a 17-year-old Priscilla. It may be a bit contrived, bed but this time-travel tale brilliantly explores family, identity, and the immigrant experience making it a must-read for teens. There are plenty of LOL-worthy moments as Sam tries to navigate the '90s. However, the most poignant moments occur when Sam realizes how casual racism, cultural differences, and the pressure to meet Halmoni, Sam’s grandmother, and see how her expectations have shaped Priscilla into who she is today. I didn't enjoy this as much as others that I have read in the past but I would read another book by this author and I did like the time travel aspect in retrospect even though I found it odd at when I was reading it.

If I Had Legs I Would Kick You (2025)

I watched this movie because the actress was nominated for an Academy Award. It is about the unraveling of Linda, a wry, worn-down mother and therapist played magnificently and unflinchingly by Rose Byrne. I 100% agree with the award going to Jesse Buckley for her work in Hamnet which was incredible but Rose Byrne was my second choice. Like unbandaging a cut too soon, leaving it oozing and throbbing, a red gash for the world to see that you clearly lack self-control, Linda seriously struggles to juggle the mysterious illness of her daughter and the sudden collapse of her literal and metaphorical ceiling, leaving her with no pillars to support her. There are some very smart things that are said in this movie about shame and hiding things. It's a cautionary tale to do neither. It is better to RIP off the Band-Aid than to leave things unattended to for literally everyone’s sake. Ane lest you think it would take months for things to get this bad, as a mental health professional myself, it can all go bad in a blink of an eye.

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible by Rabih Alameddine

I picked up this book because it won the National Book Award and interestingly was not listed by the New York Times in their hundred notable books for 2025. I have read one book by this author previously and I have to say upon reflection this book is nothing like that one and yet it they are both equally enjoyable. It takes place in a tiny Beirut apartment, where sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. He is both a beloved high school philosophy teacher and "the neighborhood homosexual", his words. Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son's desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja's work life and love life, boundaries be damned. Mother and son are both equally irritating as well as entertaining. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn't be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget. With little left unsaid between the sharp-tongued mother and her self-aware son, humor and poignance bring their challenges — close living quarters, difficult family members, financial turmoil, and wartime trauma — into bittersweet perspective. In summary this is a vivid story set in Beirut over six decades, that juxtaposes life changing moments from a gay man’s coming of age with the upheaval of a city in perpetual strife.