A Year in Books

Lots of historical fiction and books featuring textiles!

Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (Katherine Howe)
I loved this book which told the multi-generation story of the Salem witch hunts with the premise that just possibly there really were witches. A great, twisty plot.

The Lace Reader (Brunonia Barry)
Continuing with the Salem witch theme, this book takes place in the present and also has a twisty plot.

Prayers for Sale (Sandra Dallas)
This is about a friendship between an elderly storyteller and a young girl, both living in a gold mining town high in the mountains. The stories of this special time and place are interwoven with quilting. The combination of history, storytelling, and quilting made it a fun read for me.

Casting Off (Nicole Dickson)
In addition to the Salem witch thread, I also followed a textile thread...moving from lace, to quilting, to knitting in this book. This book is about a young girl who arrives in Ireland to study the lore of fisherman's sweaters. A sweet, light read with lots of yarn(s).

The Forgotten Garden (Kate Morton)
In 1913, a little girl arrives in Brisbane, Australia, and is taken in by a dockmaster and his wife. She doesn’t know her name, and the only clue to her identity is a book of fairy tales tucked inside a white suitcase. The book travels back in forth in time among 3 generations of mothers and daughters. This is the story that got Lou up a mountain this summer.

Pope Joan (Donna Cross)
I really loved this story of the Dark Ages. I thought the author did a good job of bringing the character and her world to life.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Jamie Ford)
This book, while not a favorite, launched me off into stories about the Japanese Internment.

In July I read a lot of books about the American South.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)
This story takes place in Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. The main character discovers social activism and decides to take down the stories of the black women in her community. The many stories are layered and build on each other.

Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
This classic tells the story of an African-American woman in search of her female identity. I read this book in the early mornings in steamy Florida, which really set the tone.

To Kill a Mocking Bird (Harper Lee)
I re-read this because I'll be in Alabama this summer and I just had to re-acquaint myself with the book.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou)
This autobiography provides a window into a tight-knit black community in Arkansas during the Depression. I went on to read all the rest of her autobiographies and loved them.

Mudbound (Hillary Jordan)
This book takes place in the Mississippi delta on white sharecropper's farm. A college-educated woman adjusts to rural life, a racist father-in-law, and black tenants. It gave me a different perspective from the previous books.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
I then got interested in sharecropping and read this book which is a complex documentary with incredible WPA photos.

Race: A History beyond Black and White (Marc Aronson)
This history of Race raised countless questions for me.

Rosa Parks: A Life (Douglass Brinkley)
This was a very readable biography about Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement.

FOOD WRITING
Food Matters (Mark Bittman)
This book fits into lots of the recent food writing about the relationship the state of the environment to the American diet, but he also includes some great recipes and suggests basic ingredients you should keep stocked in your pantry.

The Art of Simple Food (Alice Waters)
This is the book I'll give Helen when she's ready to really learn to cook. I love how she walks you through the basics--how to make a good stock, a simple salad dressing, etc.--and then show how to vary what you do.

Other books worth mentioning include: Cutting for Stone, The Lost Symbol, Strength in What Remains, Julia & Julia, Little Bee, Child 44, The Secret Speech, & Julie and Julia.

What's on my shelf for January?
The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Simplicity Parenting, The Broken Teaglass, The Seamstress, and hopefully some other books that feature women and handwork.