Tula Pink's City Sampler - 100 Modern Quilt Blocks

Christmas has come and gone and, with it, Christmas Eve's gift of a new book.  

This year I received Tula Pink's City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks.  Although the book is titled 'modern quilt blocks', many of the blocks included are American Classics - the style of right-angle-heavy geometric blocks made in the U.S. for generations - some you will recognize from quilts in your local museum, others will look . . . familiar, but are a dashing alternative created by a slight difference in size, placement or contrast from anything you might have seen before.  The authors challenge, laid out in her introduction, is for her readers to make these their own, to use these basic blocks to create their own unique sampler, omitting those that are unwanted, giving unique names to their favourites, and creating legacy quilts to last for another hundred years.

With it comes a different challenge to me - to go back to a weekly block.  Not necessarily to return to my weekly sampler, begun oh, so long ago, with 12.5" blocks, of which lamentably few are completed.  Those that are will find their way into a table topper or cot quilt and my new challenge will be two-fold - to use up the drawers and drawers of small scraps I have, to stick to a regimented schedule of one new block per week.

wish me luck!

Wolf by Wolf - UppercaseBox Review

Wolf by Wolf is one of those books I cannot stop talking about - and which I am four kinds of frustrated because my friends have not read it yet and don't understand what all the fuss is about.

On BookCrossing I have this tagged as Mystery/Thriller, because Action/Adventure is not an option.  Yael is herself a mystery, the unexpected consequence of a science experiment to further perfect the appearance of humanity, and her adventures are certainly thrilling - the pacing, with the events of the present and past alternating in the storyline help keep you from getting to worked up all at once, until the end that is.

The setting is an alternative past, one in which the Allied forces of the UK, Russia, U.S. and resistance movements lost the war; a world where Adolf Hitler has achieved the supremacy of the Third Reich over Europe, and the globe is split in an uneasy peace between the forces of the Hitler's Reich in the West and Hirohito's Empire in the East.

The International Olympic Committe is no more - there are no longer enough independent countries to compete - but the desire to celebrate the fitness and vitality of youth hasn't been lost, and so the East and West come together in celebration of their unified victory with the Annual Axis Tour, a grueling motorcycle race from Berlin to Tokyo, where the finest specimens of Aryan and Japanese youths vye for the title of Victor. 

This is where Yael comes in - a master impostor, raised first in the labour camps, later on the streets, and finally growing into womanhood under master tutelage in the Resistance, she has trained to take the place of the lone female racer representing Germany.  When she wins the race she will have the chance of a lifetime - to attend a dinner with the Axis leaders, and perhaps find herself dancing cheek to cheek with the Fuhrer himself.

Being an impostor is hard - harder still when you are pretending to be someone who's already achieved fame and is under constant scrutiny from her fellow competitors and the Reichssender cameras at every checkpoint; even more difficult when your fellow competitors include a racer with whom your subject has a previously acrimonious history and her twin brother.

One of Jennifer Donnelly's characters once said that hope was 'the crystal meth of emotions' leading you on through through pain and possibility to the inevitable crash.  It's hope, then, that drives Yael.  Under all the pain, violence and suffering, the broken bodies and broken hearts, it's hope that drives Yael onward; hope that she can be the change the world needs, hope that all the lives lost to war will not have been lost in vain.

Part of the success of this book for me is not just that, even in it's darkest moments (chapter 11 is where things seem to all come crashing down), it remains incredibly hopeful, but also that it's characters are drawn so deftly - so clearly alive.  From the spotted boy who makes the sign of the cross, to the racer who wants to teach literature, they are all real people you might know - and they become people you can't help but root for, pray for, hold your breath for, and when the hammer falls, you hope their hope will not be in vain.

This book is reviewed on BookCrossing.com, BCID 680-13751697  If you have read this book and would like to post a review, please share your reactions in the comments below or at BookCrossing.

UppercaseBox November 2015

It's here!  I am sure to become thoroughly spoiled as I am a 1-day ship point from the UppercaseBox homeworld, but with only a day's notice, my November box has arrived. 

This month's title, an alternate history complete with a race to save humanity, is sure to be a hit with all members of chez tarabu. 

UppercaseBox Book Review: First & Then

As I just got the shipping notification that my November UppercaseBox is on the way, it's probably about time I write up my thoughts on the October title.  Having finished the book I can say with all honesty: this is still not a book I would have picked out for myself.

The only character I could relate to from the start was Ezra, and not because I was ever a sports prodigy, but because he is the quiet outsider, new to the school and finding himself in the middle of everyone else's lives.  As someone who never went to the same school more than two years running until college, I found it easy to identify with someone who is the new kid senior year, plopped into the middle of friendships that have existed for, literally, a decade.

The narrator, Dev, is a mess, but thankfully she grows up a lot in the space of a few hundred pages and a couple of months.  She's hopeless and heartsick, with no actual direction or goals and nothing remotely like the oomph needed to go anywhere after high school or amount to much of anything.  At the start of the book she has literally no goals, other than a sarcastic interest in majoring in 'advanced breakfast with a minor in cable television'.

She is the center of a social circle comprised of near friends and close acquaintances, including:
Foster - the cousin she hasn't seen for years, who her parents are fostering while his mom deals with addiction and the loss of his father.  Dev's relationship with Foster grows from annoyed, affronted and put out, to fiercely protective.  I didn't like Dev much until she thought Foster might be moving back home - her reaction to that possibility, and how she handled the reality, made me proud to know her.

Cas - the best friend and unwitting love interest, the subject of her puppy love crush for, and I mean this, years.  Dev learns years pining for him, waiting for him to realize she was always the one, until she realizes she's worth seeking out, not being conveniently found.

Ezra - the new guy - cool, dashing, remote, and famous.  Ezra shows up with all kinds of baggage - the emotional kind he keeps private and the public kind that comes from being the new outsider who takes over the school football team.  His motives are in question before he passes his first ball and his reticence only makes the whispers louder and more fervent.

Lindsay - beautiful, popular, the apple of Cas' eye, Lindsay may be the greatest 'a-ha' moment Dev has - finally breaking out of her self-centered little bubble Dev not only sees Lindsay for who she is, but begins to see herself through Lindsay's eyes.

For the technical review - the writing is crisp and clean - at some times laugh out loud funny and at others, heart-stoppingly dramatic.  Unlike Romeo & Juliet, the main characters live, which is basically setting any work up for a possible sequel, but I don't know that I would want one.  The characters are so freshly drawn, with an ending that is equal parts melancholy and hopeful, and I wonder if a sequel would keep that newness about them or if, in maturing, they would develop harsher edges.

For the Uppercase review - this was my first UppercaseBox and I did not know what to expect from the Uppercase experience; and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The discussions, videos and author input were well placed throughout the book and delightful additions to the reading experience.

4 stars - a solid four stars; although this is not a book I will describe with jazz hands to every passerby, it is a book I can whole-heartedly recommend to more than one reader in my life and at the end of the day, I am glad I read it.

This review is registered at BookCrossing.com, BCID 623-13699500.  If you have read this book and would like to post a review, please share your thoughts in the comments below or at www.BookCrossing.com/623-13699500 

Uppercase Box - just one and hooked!

For my birthday this month, in addition to a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, I was the lucky recipient of a subscription to Uppercase.

Uppercase is a monthly subscription of new YA titles - either something on sale the month it ships or the month before - no older. In addition to the book the monthly box includes a signed bookplate and a couple of pieces of bookish swag, all in a cute drawstring bag which does a marvelous job of keeping your book fresh when it's shoved in the depths of your bag.

October Uppercase box including first & then by Emma Mills

This month's selection is a book I flat-out never would have picked out for myself - the cover, although charming, is not particularly my style and the description (Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights) makes some delicate organ inside me seize up and twitch ever so slightly. However, two chapters in, I am enjoying it - the language is clever, the humour is the best kind of self-deprecating wit, and the characters are developing nicely. Sure I am not far in and I may want to abandon it at some point, but for now it has given me quite a few more laughs than I had without it, and if it weren't for Uppercase, I would never have given it a fair shake.

I Text Dead People

Well, I don't text dead people - I talk to them, but don't text them.  Annabel Craven, on the other hand . . . In her defense she doesn't start out trying to text dead people, it's just easier to get a 13 year-old girl's attention with a text.

She has several strikes against her when she starts her new school - she's the new kid at school, the new kid in town, she lives in the spooky old mansion of her recently deceased uncle, who was known as Mad Maddsen and her house is adjacent to the oldest graveyard in town;

and it's around the corner from the local mortuary;

and her mother is a hairdresser (practically a servant!);

and (worst of all) she doesn't have a cell phone!

Well, of course she does, how else could she text people you say - well, she doesn't have a cell phone when she moves to town, but she finds one in the woods next to the cemetery, so then she does.

This book has everything -
a vibrant cast:
- Olivia and Eden, a pair of twins straight out of Sweet Valley High who lead the posh girls, one of whom has a dark (literally!) secret life;
- Annabel, the new girl trying desperately to hide where she lives, get in with the cool kids, and survive the Gifted and Talented classes she accidentally tested into;
- Johnny, the romantic interest (of nearly everyone) who has a disarmingly weird older brother;
- Spencer, the school photographer;
- Millie, the quiet girl no one ever notices;
- Lucy, the desperately shy nervous girl everyone notices;
a tragic accident:
- a Jane Doe in the local cemetery whose death is only referenced in passing;
- a fatal accident from a prank gone bad;
- a brilliant presentation - a text font that is equal parts gothic and cheerful and slightly manic drawings that reinforce the 'this can't be happening' mood of the book.

I loved nearly everything about this - good foreshadowing, charming mix of characters, and did I mention the presentation?  It's lovely when a book is written by an artist - it just looks and feels good.

And not-quite-spoiler - Jane Doe isn't who I thought she was - which means I am now eagerly looking forward to the release of The Ungrateful Dead next year!

Spring read - Empty Mansions

For the last decade or so I have considered myself lucky to live in an age where journalists get to write history.  The '80s and 90's seemed to peak the rising tide of junior historians playing a kind of intellectual capture-the-flag - only rather than finding a specialty to grind away at for the rest of their careers, they were looking for a previously unexploited period of not-quite-recent history to reevaluate through their filter, whether that was gender, educational opportunity, climate or biological limitation.  

Journalists, on the other hand, express a near surgical precision when distilling events into facts, then rebuild them in the context of the culture in which they occurred.  The highly trained skill of evoking 'human interest' often translates into a clear, honest and refreshingly non-judgmental story of lives from another time.  

The writers of Empty Mansions have two big advantages over the average historian writing about a family and time out of place - one being that Huguette Clark existed both in the last century and this, dying in May 2011 at 104; the other being that one of the authors is a distant relative.  Distant enough not to have a stake in her estate after her passing, close enough to share her personal memories of the family and colourful figures who made those empty mansions home.

From W.A. Clark's youth as a prospector to her years of isolation the authors offer us a glimpse into a world of hard-won privilege, one not immune from emotional losses that all the money in the world cannot heal.  Huguette's life is told, in part, through the context of her family's lavish homes.  It is a life of extraordinary wealth, privilege and grandeur, a life that included incredible highs and devastating lows, including the loss of her beloved sister.

It's the kind of life story that's full of spoilers, depending on who tells it: a fairy tale where the princess hides herself in her castle, living in self-imposed isolation as an urban Lady of Shalott - shadows of the world reflected in her extensive grants for museums and music halls, gifts for friends and strangers alike, her anonymous support for a beautiful world she no longer enjoyed.  

The Devil's Intern - a hot read for a cold day

The Devil's Intern: With traces of the with and straight-faced alternative reality found in Good Omens and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this is one of the funniest new books I have read in a very long time.

The title is not accurate, of course - the Devil doesn't have an intern.  His Chief Accountant, however, does. Hell is big business - almost everyone goes there when they die and after several thousand years that's a lot of souls who need to have food to eat, dorms in which to sleep, clothes to wear, and cell phones to keep in touch with each other across the myriad of caverns, tunnels and byways of Hell.

And all that costs money.

Bills from every department in the massive bureaucracy that is a modern Hell come pouring in to the office of Septimus - Hell's Chief Accountant and number two Devil.  Mitchell Johnson, a seventeen year-old musical prodigy (dead only four years and not suited to manual labour) wins the position of Devil's Intern and is tasked with juggling the invoices, demands and credit notes that threaten to overwhelm the office.  Having an intern to help process all the bills while the Chief Accountant calms Sir down in his latest rage won't do much to stop the bigger problems, though - overcrowding and lack of funds.

There's still an economy in Hell - all Devils work, all Devils earn a paycheck and all Devils consume.  But while the population of Hell is ever-growing, Hell itself, isn't: overcrowding and shortages have become distinct threats to the balance of operations in Hell and something has to be done about it -
- Sir wants to unleash Operation H, which may or may not be the kind of devastating plague that makes ebola look like a bad rash
- Septimus wants to lead an unholy war of Devils to bring Heaven to their knees

but neither plan is ready to launch - and Septimus has a last ditch effort that is risky, requires a team of trustworthy Devils and will, if successful, stop the dead from coming to Hell.

Septimus is the guardian of Hell's only impervious safe - in addition to reports of security breaches, glistening black credit cards backed by the strength of Wall Street, and stacks of emergency currency from all major countries, he is the keeper of the fabled Viceiseometer - a device that allows the possessor to travel through space and time.

With the Viceiseometer a team of focused Devils can travel to world events and limit the kinds of carnage that fills Hell with new dead - plagues, environmental disasters, terrorist attacks could all suddenly lose their bluster - and thanks to the paradox of not know what could have (but then didn't) happen, no one on earth would realize their temporal strand was tampered with.

Of course, that plan is shot to hell when Mitchell Johnson (four syllables, nothing more) realizes he has the chance to keep one very important devil from coming to hell - himself.

It wouldn't be much of a story if Mitchell just stole the Viceiseometer, went back to his death, stopped himself from getting hit by a bus and went on to be the next genre-subverting alterna-rock star. No, the story includes Medusa - known throughout Hell for her strawberry cheesecake, Eleanor - who has desperately waited hundreds of years for the chance to find the friends who would save her from an excruciating death she couldn't avoid, and Alfarin - a Viking who died in battle and is famous in Hell for appearing to his family after his death.

So, they steal the Viceiseometer and everything goes according to plan.  Until it doesn't - which happens the moment they land in Central Park and realize they have all acclimated to Hell and are at very real risk of freezing to another death on a cold November day.

Mitchell is desperate to save his friends from death and has trouble processing the fact that they might want to see their deaths from the other side, but don't want to live again.  From the reeking, muddy village where Alfarin is slaughtered to the raging inferno as London burns where Eleanor saves her brothers, but not in time to save herself, to Medusa's - well, actually that's the biggest thing that doesn't go according to plan: Medusa runs off on her own to a different time and place with no forwarding address.  Team DEViL loses her, finds her again and accidentally save her life.

It takes forty years for her to come back to them - which she accidentally does when she interviews to be the Devil's other Intern.  It will take another four months for me to find out what happened - book two is due out June 2015, and by all accounts Septimus, who exists beyond the paradox, has engineered her return to the group, but before she can find out how these devils appeared to her before her death, she'll be on an adventure with them to save the earth from the Devil's nightmares.

If you haven't read The Devil's Intern yet, I highly recommend it - the characters are rich, flawed, and real.  If you have, give it another read - the carefully plotted nuances - forty years dead, over forty years; strawberries; what was fate and what was a plan you didn't know you made yet, are all waiting to be rediscovered.

Holiday Heap o' Books

My family are nothing if not enablers . . . Or perhaps they just like the immense amounts of dust that books attract.

I enjoyed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children very much when I first read it, but somehow never managed to get around to Hollow City last year when it was released.  I have already begun reading and was delighted to see it picked up just where Miss Peregrine's left off, although I will admit I haven't been sucked in to the point of missing sleep.  Pacing myself to a chapter every few days is not proving difficult and not racing allows me to truly savour the words.  Quite frankly my days have been so hectic lately that I am truly enjoying being able to slow myself down.  

Seasonal Reading

I read, a lot - it's a good way to keep me out of trouble and give my brain a different kind of exercise than quilt math or trying to mix colours. I read new works on a fairly regular basis, but I have dozens of old standbys to get me through the year. Some of which I read when the moment strikes - I just finished Monica Sheridan's 'The ARt of Irish Cooking' because, well, it's winter and I wanted to read about stews and potatoes and colcannon, all the comfort foods that keep us going through the long days.

This is also about the time of year when I pull out 'All the Blue Moons at the Wallace Hotel' by Phoebe Stone. It's sadly out of print, and I say sadly because it strikes me as one of the most worthwhile modern books for girls 8-12. I didn't grow up with a sister and didn't suffer bankruptcy and the death of my father as a young girl, but the lessons of family, friendship, and functioning in the world under the weight of great sadness still ring true for me. You can find used copies at the linked image.

Sometime on Christmas Eve I will break out Marcus Sedgwick's 'The Book of Dead Days.' I'm tempted to pull it out after the Yule celebration, but force myself to wait those extra few days. Last year I didn't make it past my morning cup of tea before I was back in the rotten stinking City, greatful for the snow that temporarily covered up the smell of something much worse than horses or people and wondered what secret canals The Phantom would spring from next. Boy is my hero and Willow my little stalwart. Although the book tracks the days from Christmas to New Year's, I don't have that kind of willpower and generally finish it by Boxing Day. It's rapidly followed by the sequel, 'The Dark Flight Down', for which I have no pretense of waiting until January 3rd to begin.

It dawned on me as I pulled out my stack of 'winter classics' that I only have one for summer - David Grann's 'The Lost City of Z.' Perhaps that's because the days are longer and there's always something else to do in the summer.

And it makes me wonder - does any one else do this, does any one else pull out books the way they do decorations?

BotD: Yoga for Elephants

We all know yoga is good for us, but some of the attributes of yoga can feel a little silly to western sensibilities (like squatting on the floor humming). Plus, if you go to a class you are basically sitting around in your pajamas with a bunch of strangers trying to turn your desk-bound body into that of a child again.

Videos can be helpful - at the very least they help you know how long to hold a pose - but quite frankly I have yet to find the voice of a fitness video leader one I can listen to. I need a human, not a chipmunk.

I'm sure there are some great books out there, but my favourite is this one:




Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff

Okay, so I'm a little simple, and very biased towards elephants, but you should really check this book out - if you're interested in learning basic yoga. The pictures are clear, simple and straightforward. The directions are incredibly detailed - the kind of details the yoga teacher at the gym sometimes misses when trying to explain the position to newcomers.

BotD: Secret Lives of Great Artists

. . . . True Tales of Murder, Forgery, Trickery and Great Art

This was a holiday gift from a dear friend - the kind of friend who loves a good scandal and better art as much as I do!

This is one of those universal books for anyone who can read the language. It is clever, witty, full of character and characters and each little tale is short and concise. It's the kind of book you can keep in the bathroom to read while you're brushing your teeth or keep in the car for those interminable roadblocks.

It's also the kind of book that can make you sound smarter at cocktail parties - most people probably don't know that Michelangelo thought bathing would make you ill and had trouble keeping assistants because of his ridiculously foul odor.



Do people who don't live in tarabuland still have cocktail parties? You know, those civilized affairs where you count how many people can fit in your abode and you invite two less than that many. Where people arrive at 7 and leave at 9 and expect h'ors doeurves and canapes, but not a meal. Where people don't yak in the azaleas on the way out.

Do these affairs still exist? I sure hope so.

BotD: The Magic Mirror

Today's Book of the Day is The Magic Mirror by Kermit L. Hall. The subtitle is 'Law in American History' - now, quickly, before you doze off, stick with me for a minute. This isn't nearly as dry and heavy as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it's a paperback, and you can have it for less the cost of your monthly internet cable bill.

The author's preface is the best case for why you don't have to be a law student to read this: 'This book is about the history of American legal culture and the law in action. It is not a technical history of substantive law, nor is it an intensive study of case law development in either private or public law.'

See? It's not boring. It's stories of how the legals system in our country developed - in the context of a developing American society. Every aspect of law and the legal system is touched on - from the personal: the laws of domestic relations and personal standing to the Industrial Revolution and the foundations of regulatory law; from the laws of state and federal economics to the formalization of the bar system - there's a little something here for everyone.

If you live and breathe in this country, if you purchase manufactured goods, vote for your county orphans judge or know anyone who's experienced adoption or divorce, there's an element of law in every day of your life.

It may not be your standard spring break reading, but if you tote this to the beach, you may find yourself offered cosmos instead of jello shooters and you definitely won't be approached by the 'Girls Gone Wild' production team - and that's good for everyone!

BotD: Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby

It may surprise some to know that I'm know full-blood dork. Seriously, I'm kind of like the employee shuttle driver at Epcot Center: I cruise the perimeter, intimately aware of the ins, outs, dramas and trials of each little enclave of the dork forest, but really, I'm not one of them.

I remember choice lines from Buffy, but do not remember the episodes' names.

I know what a D20 is, but do not have one.

I am all about SuperGrover, but don't like Muppets take Manhattan.

I understand why Dragonlance people can't talk to Dragonrider people.

I understand that Halo is a lifestyle choice.

I respect comic-con, but I've never dressed up for anything that didn't start with 'Hallow' and end with 'een'.

I can unite with the other tribes of the dork forest in the universal disdain of civil war reenactors. Yes, they are the original larpers, but, dude, that's a level of dork that just won't wash off.

So it's with much voyeuristic joy that I share Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby: True Adventures in Cult Fandom.

It's hysterical, wonderful and touching - a deep, brazen, blindingly real tale of the lives, loves, turf wars, Orthodox tourists and homeless cats of Buffy Fandom. Being a Buffy Fan, I'm biased to give a lot of slack to the fans. Having never posted on a Buffy chat board, I am still an outsider who wonders how these grown-ups with jobs and rent and pets manage to spend this much time online with each other talking about a tv show. Yes, I do see the irony in my spending time writing about a book about people who talk/write/drink about a tv show.



Welcome to the dork forest. We have beer, cosmos, and cake. Really good cake.

BotD: A Pound of Paper

Sometimes, it's just easier to hand people a user's manual instead of trying to explain things to them.

That's how I feel about inviting people over. You see, I know that people tend to react to my books in the same way they would react to someone's collection of pez dispensers, or walking into someone's home and finding a lifesize mural of Chewbacca (okay that's me, too), so sometimes I will this could be required reading before people are allowed across the threshhold.



If you are book people, this will reassure you that, while not normal, there's at least a good chance that your particular mental disorder isn't going to kill people. If you are someone who loves a book person, it will reassure you that maybe they're a little more normal than you thought.

BotD: The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar

I always feel like fictionalized histories of undocumented conversations should come with a warning on every page. A forceful reminder that this is all conjecture - possibly well-informed and intensively researched, but made up nonetheless.

I have the same trouble with films sometimes - like the film from Junger's A Perfect Storm. They never came home, so you don't really know who did what - the punk kid could have been the hero trying to save everybody or the skipper could have gone mad and jumped ship, you just don't know.

Anyway, if you have less difficulty suspending your disbelief, or simply enjoy a good story without worrying about whether it's accurate to the people the characters are based on, then you'll probably enjoy this.

The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar is one of those fictionalized biographies that is a great story that may or may not be true - like a lot of fun books.



Note: It's easier to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the story if you read it with a glass of shiraz. I'm just sayin'

BotD: Breakfast with Tiffany

I love biographies - well-written tales of a life's homes, its loves, its fun and failure. They fulfill my deep human need to connect with others of the species while absolving me from the obligation to actually talk to people. They are what keep introverts alive.

So it's with much delight that my quiet little world - an introverted world of quiet scholarship, with three friends, all of the unlikely-to-get-me-arrested sort - tuned in one day to Breakfast with Tiffany.

It's the story of a forty-something single man of Manhattan, with his orderly life, orderly schedule and very orderly apartment who invites his hip, troubled, extroverted teenage niece to live with him. Beyond the usual Felix & Oscar antics that ensue ('teenagers are supposed to live in filth!') the emotional lessons of life's loves, losses and social upheavals are played out all over the place.

I highly recommend it for everyone who ever was a teenager and doesn't remember it being that bad (apparently, it was).

I didn't mean to take the week off, it just kind of happened.

Personally, I have nothing new to share - my camera died a few weekss ago and the idea of spending an hour in my poorly organized digital photo files to find some old snaps of paintings or sketches or what not makes me want to grab a cup of tea and crawl back under the coverswith a book.

Speaking of books, I am currently reading The Lost City of Z by David Grann.

I highly recommend it - not only is he one of the many journalists who writes history better than an historian (something about objectivity - a skill that both historians and journalists no longer seem to be trained to use - must have been dropped from the curriculum in the last fifteen years) but it's a grand adventure and it reminds us how often what is known to be true by the scientific establishment is so often wrong.

It reminds me not only how grateful I am to live in an age of reliable indoor plumbing, but how lucky I am not to literally fight for survival every day. I have reasonably available food, free-flowing clean water and a safe, dry bed, where I can go to sleep every night certain I will wake up without a sting from some insect whose venom will kill me.

BagBook in the works

The pair of small buds on vines are the front cover, which will include a small silver filligree button. The fabric is a lovely white-on-white floral with tiny vines that does not photograph well at all.

As you have undoubtedly noticed, I try to create cover art that is inspired by the title or relates to the story. In this case, it was Elton John's song 'England's Rose' that led to this cover. While personally kind of sad that he took that song away from Marilyn Monroe, I am grateful in this case - drawing the tiara she wore for her wedding was a daunting thought!

More new offerings

I am feeling a bit of pressure to produce more these days (it could have something to do with having 300k miles on a car with original struts) so here's a few new offerings for you to peruse and, hopefully, share with your friends!


A new bagbook - I adore this green. I had other intentions for this fabric, but it seems much happier in this purse:



and here's another lillian for your amusement:




for some reason, she makes me think of those chocolates shaped like oranges you get in your stocking at yule time!