My Reading Life

My life might seem to consist only of making quilts, but this is not the case, at all. I have had a lifelong love of reading and on more than one occasion I have mentioned that I was not sewing or quilting because I had a book to finish for book club.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” Jane Austen,  Pride and Prejudice 

Since 1999, I have been in a book club with some women who have become very dear to me. I will not be able to list all that we have read in those nearly 20 years, but I can say a little bit about some of my personal favorites.

The six books pictured above were all really great reads, even The Historian, which besides the enormous length of the book, revolved around vampires, a subject that doesn't enthrall me. The Pilcher book, Winter Solstice, was wonderfully comforting and such a gentle read, while the subjects in the others were edgier, more gripping and dramatic in one way or another. Our group likes to be varied in our selections, and in my opinion, we do read a pleasingly wide variety of genres and topics, both current and not-so-current.

We have read fiction and non-fiction, historical, classics, biographies, YA and best-sellers. A few turn out to be duds, but mostly I have been satisfied with our choices.  That 2nd book above, The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B, is about Napolean's wife and is written in diary form. I devoured it. It is the first of a 3-book series, and I read them all. O Pioneers is a classic that I read back in high school, and reading it again as an adult was pure enjoyment! I love Willa Cather's writing.

Seabiscuit was fantastic, as was Shipping News, The Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Year of Wonders, and The Glass Castle. I have only a faint memory of the Atkinson novel, and the Ruth Reichl book is something of a cookbook, if memory serves.

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” 

Stephen King,On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  

Three books not pictured here, I would like to mention. Categorized as being at the very top of our "Best Books" list are The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. Wow, they were so excellent, and offered thoughtful and challenging discussion.

I don't own nearly all the books we have read; I do make use of our library when availability is not an issue. We in the reading group do share library copies as well as personal copies on occasion. And as I am typing here, I am thinking of dozens more that we liked - maybe I will try to share more titles in a later post.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

How to Procrastinate

If procrastination were an Olympic sport, I could compete on a grand scale. I have this prom dress to get finished, and I really want to finish it so I can get back to my quilting projects. So what do I do instead of finishing the dress??

I read a book, of course.

I picked it up on Tuesday and finished it on Wednesday. So you know I barely put it down to do anything else!  While I'm mentioning it, I might as well recommend it, too. It is a wonderfully satisfying read!

This pic is taken from the author's website. It's reviewed as "a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race and medicine." Riveting  is the operative word there - I swear, I couldn't put it down. It's non-fiction, and is being made into a movie, I believe. My book club is meeting next week to discuss this book, and we will have many topics to cover and issues to explore.

Strangely, I really was not looking forward to reading this book. It's heavily science-based, and I just couldn't see myself getting into it. How wrong I was! It was incredibly fascinating, and I strongly recommend it to any of you readers out there in the blogosphere.

So, you see how my procrastination works? I will read a book that I am not even looking forward to reading in order to avoid working on something that I really MUST get busy on!

Geesh.

Tea With My Book Club

This afternoon, the Bibliomaniacs, a dear little book club I belong to, went on a most awesome outing. We drove over towards Cowan Lake, in Clinton County, to Lucy and Ethel's Country Tea Room for a delightfully indulgent luncheon. The photo above was taken on my cell phone and does not do justice to the beauty of the foods that were prepared. We had 2 flavors of hot tea, and one iced tea. There were at least 4 courses to our meal - but the meal was the tiniest of foods! The spread on the plates pictured here came after the scones and shortbread course, and the soup course. The bottom plate of the tiered server contains desserts. Our hostess had a "bonus" or surprise course even after that which consisted of homemade lemon cream ice cream! It and everything she served was just heavenly.

Instead of reading a book for this month's meeting, we agreed to bring and share a poem over our lunch. Each poem shared was lovely, and absolutely fit the mood of a sunny fall day in a southern Ohio tea room.

As we were leaving Lucy and Ethel's, we realized that we were just over 10 years old as a book club! What a nice way to celebrate. We have had a few changes in members since our inception, but we seven who are currently active have been very steady for most of those 10 years.