The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

 

The Whistling Season

by

Ivan Doig

Set in Montana in 1910, The Whistling Season is a story of the one room school house.  The novel actually begins in the 1950s during the beginnings of school consolidation.  The superintendent of Montana schools reminisces about his education in a one room school house.  Ivan Doig wrote this book in 2006 and does a good job of capturing life during that time and in that place.  It is the kind of book I would have snuggled up with my kids and read, one chapter at a time, when they were upper elementary aged and could easily be required reading for high school aged students.  Ivan Doig's sentence structure is a little challenging but I easily got accustomed to it and slid into the rhythm of the sentences.  There were words scattered throughout that I did not know.  I read it on my kindle so highlighted these new words as I read for the dictionary meaning to pop up. This is not an exciting, sit on the edge of your seat book.  It is a get comfortable and relax kind of book.  Click on the  book title above to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the video about the author at the link that follows.  

Watch the video here.  

The Seven Sisters

by

Lucinda Riley

I was complaining to my brother that the wait list for this book was very long on Libby and he graciously sent me a copy in my kindle for my birthday so I was able to read it this week.  It had caught my eye because its premise sounded interesting to me.  It is based on a fictional family of sisters whose adoptive father names them after  the seven sisters constellation.  At the onset of the book the father passes away but leaves each daughter information about their biological parents.  This is a book series where every book covers one of the sister's search for her origins.  The book is a dual timeline novel.  One timeline being the eldest sister looking for her mother and father and the other timeline being the 1920s during her great grandmother's lifetime.  Most of the book takes place in Brazil and tells the story of the coffee plantations and the building of the statue of Christ, which is considered one of the seven modern wonders of the world and is on a mountain top over looking Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Two primary love stories also are weaved throughout the novel.  I am now on the wait list on Libby for the second novel in this series.  This book was one that I stayed up late at night reading.  I enjoyed it very much.  Please watch both videos at the links below and click on the book title and author's name above to follow additional links to more information.  

Statue info

Coffee barons info

 

My Name Is

Mary Sutter

by

Robin Oliveira

We got home from vacation and I came down with mild cold symptoms so it was a good excuse to stay curled up with a book.  Therefore  I finished My Name Is Mary Sutter quicker than I normally would have.  This novel is set during the Civil War and is about a young woman who has aspirations to be a surgeon at a time that women were not welcome in medical schools.  She is able to utilize the great need of medical personal during the war to obtain experience and achieve her goals.  She starts in housekeeping at the worst facility in Washington DC and works her way up from there.  The book really explains the horrible conditions soldiers had to endure at the onset of the war when they needed medical care and highlights some progress that was made.  Much of the progress in medical facilities and care occurred after the war was over as a result of the need the Civil War exposed.  Things were really dirty because germs had not been discovered.  Soldiers were drinking out of the same water sources they went to the bathroom and bathed in.  Disease killed more of them than bullets or cannon balls did.  Robin Oliveira did a lot of detailed research in writing this book.  Besides battles and disease there is family dynamics and romance.  The character of Mary Sutter is a very determined and strong willed woman.  The book held my interest and I highly recommend it.  Please watch the video that follows and click on the links above for more information.  

Click Here To Watch The Video.

 

The Great Trouble

by

Deborah Hopkinson

I have not been reading for enjoyment this year.   I slipped away from my bedtime reading routine and the months flew by with no books enjoyed.  I decided to remedy that and chose an easy book to start.  The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson is the sort of book I would have read to my kids when they were in grade school.  We would call them chapter books.   Or a youngster in the  upper elementary and middle school grades could easily read at this level.  It was a fun quick read.  It also is in my interest area.  It is a historical novel which is my genre and it covers medical history which always appeals to me since I am a retired RN.  The story takes place in London during the 1854 Cholera outbreak.  It explains how it was discovered that the disease was water borne instead of airborne and the process used to determine that.  It would be a great novel to teach kids about the scientific process.  The basic story of Dr John Snow and his work is true but the kids who help him with the scientific process are fiction.  Please take the time to watch the video below and click on the links above to learn more.  

Click here to watch video. 

 

Cardiac Cowboys Podcast

 

Cardiac Cowboys

A Podcast

A friend from my Tai Chi class, who is also a retired nurse, recommended the podcast Cardiac Cowboys to me and I have been recommending it to anyone I know who enjoys podcasts.  For those that prefer reading, it is based on the book of the same name by Dr. Gerald Imber. This podcast was especially interesting to me since I had open heart surgery in May of 2025.  My mitral valve was replaced with a pig valve along with a couple other repairs.  If it had not been for the doctors and patients who are featured in this podcast I would be in heart failure at this time instead of listening to the podcast during my afternoon walks.  This is a very entertaining podcast.  I highly recommend it to anyone who has any interest in medical history.  It is one season and seven episodes long.  I was sorry when I was done listening to it that there were not more episodes.  But there were two television shows mentioned in the series.  One is a movie, which I watched and enjoyed.   The other is a series and I have only watched the first episode but it promises to be a good series.  Below find the trailer for both those television shows and click on the the two parts of the title above to follow links to more information about the podcast.  If you don't listen to this podcast or whatch these shows you are missing out.  

Movie

 

TV Series 

Hawaii by James A Michener

 

Hawaii

by

James A. Michener

The historical fiction novel Hawaii by James A. Michener is a very long book.  It takes a commitment to get through it with only one renewal on Libby (the library ebook app allows one renewal).  But it is very much worth reading.  I had read his book Alaska prior to our trip to Alaska in 2024 and had regretted not reading Hawaii before our trip to Hawaii the year before.  But since I am returning to Hawaii for a shorter trip next month, I decided to not miss the opportunity again.  I was a little disappointed that Michener jumped from when the Polynesians arrived on the islands to when the missionaries arrived.  I would have liked to dig more into the history of the original inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands.  But I have to admit the book was long enough.  The reader will need to look for another book about the earlier history of Hawaii.  The interesting thing about this particular historical novel is that it delves into the race relations of the various ethnic groups on the island.  There were several groups.  The Polynesian people that first arrived are considered Hawaiian.  The missionaries that came in the early to mid 1800s and proceeded to destroy the Hawaiin culture and take over control of the islands for more than one hundred years.  The Chinese, Japanese and Philippine people who were  brought to Hawaii by the descendants of the missionaries to be migrant workers in sugar cane and pineapple fields.  Michener brings into the story health crisis' such as plague and Hansen's disease.  And he weaves in the story the financial fabric that maintained the social hierarchy of the area.  Which used control of the land much like the feudal system in England centuries before.  There is a lot of meat to discuss in this book.  The only short coming I see is that it leaves out  the Hawaiian's history.  Please click on the author's name above to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows. 

 

The Quilter's Apprentice by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Quilter's Apprentice

by

Jennifer Chiaverini

Another book by Jennifer Chiaverini was gifted to me.  This time by my sister in law.  She sent a signed edition of the first book in the Elm Creek Quilter's series: The Quilter's Apprentice.  As with the other book by Jennifer Chiaverini that  I recently read it is a clean cut delightful story of the relationships that women struggle with between family and friends and those that can develop among women who quilt.  This is also the story of the founding of the artist colony that becomes Elm's Creek Quilts which is the basis of the entire series.  The author weaves a story of family history, a story of the history of a home, and the story of a community from immigration, through the Second World War and into the mid 1990s.  I am sure that I will eventually finish this series.  Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow the links to more information and enjoy the video that follows.  Although the video features another book in the series, the author also explains the series in general.  

 

The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd

 

The Indigo Girl

by

Natasha Boyd

The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd is a book I really enjoyed about a young teenaged girl who lives in the early 1700s in South Carolina.   She is running her father's plantations while he is fighting the Spanish for the English crown and decides they need a new cash crop.  She chooses to pursue growing and producing indigo even though others say it can be done.  After several false starts she is successful. A true historical figure in South Carolina's history  is really brought to life in this historical novel.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the  links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

Dating Fabrics: A Color Guide 1800-1960 by Eileen Jahnke Trestain

Dating Fabrics

A Color Guide

1800-1960

by

Eileen Jahnke Trestain

Seven weeks ago, when I arrived home to begin my recovery from open heart surgery I found a package had arrived from a friend.  She had enclosed a couple of books.  One was Dating Fabrics: A Color Guide 1800 - 1960 by Eileen Jahnke Trestain.   It is a little over 200 pages and many of those pages are pictures of fabric swatches that represent examples of the various time periods. The author makes it clear how inventions such as the cotton gin and the domestic sewing machine provide earmarks for dating.  And current events, such as the death of Queen Victoria's husband, which loosely coincided with the rise of the number of civil war widows in the United States, influenced the color palates of a generation.   The development of science in relation to making fabric die is one factor to keep in mind when dating fabric.  Since I have had several old family quilts come in to my possession in recent years this is a subject that interests me.  Eileen Trestain has organized this book well and it will be a great reference book for me to utilize.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links for more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

Empire Falls by Charlie Russo

 

Empire Falls

by

Richard Russo

Empire Falls by Richard Russo is a novel that is not terribly long and I checked it out on my kindle app from the library.  The fact that I had to renew it says a lot for how much I felt lukewarm about it while reading it.  I will say it got better at the end.  The chapters that lead up to the school shooting and the chapter where the shooting occurred did hold my interest.  In fact the second half of the book was good.  I understand the first half of the book was spent developing characters.   But somehow it just came off gossipy to me.  I am glad I hung in there though because over all it is a good book.  It is the story of several individuals that live in a small town in Maine where industry has left and very little is left as far as opportunities for those that remain.  There are people who lie, people who have affairs, and people who are just discouraged.  The people in the town are trapped in their lives and they all want things to somehow change for them.  It isn't really my genre.  But over all it is a good book.  It was a best seller and they made a movie out of it.  Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow the link to more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

Living The Life Of A Fabric-aholic by Sandy Gervais

 

Living The Life

Of A

Fabric-aholic

by

SANDY GERVAIS

This book is a little short story that is colorfully illustrated and meant to cheer up and poke fun at over spending on fabric.  Some quilters get carried away with their fabric purchases. It is easy to accumulate quite a bit and not realize what all you have.   A couple days after I got home from Cleveland Clinic a package arrived in the mail.  My brother and sister in law had sent it.  Included was a darling hand made pillow case in which the fabric had frogs wearing scrub suits and a Sandy Gervais's book, Living The Life Of A Fabric-aholic.  It took me less than thirty minutes to read the book and was good for several chuckles.  It is a thoughtful gift book to give to your quilter friends.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  The video is a bit long but is an interview of the author explaining how she develops her fabric lines.  

Circle of Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini

 

Circle of Quilters

by

Jennifer Chiaverini

When I arrived home from Cleveland Clinic following my open heart mitral valve surgery last week, a package was waiting on me.  A good friend since childhood had sent me a couple of books to read during my convalescence.  One of the books she sent was a novel named Circle of Quilters from a series by Jennifer Chiaverini called the Elm Creek quilts.  While it is a different genre than I normally read, I found it a very refreshing story.  Elm Creek Quilts is a fictional quilt retreat center outside of Pittsburgh where people come and stay and take classes.  Staying several days they gather and chat while they sew.  Ideas are exchanged and it is a popular spot for quilters.  In this particular novel of the series the quilt retreat is losing two staff members and the board is interviewing for their replacement.  The stories of five of the applicants are included in the book with each of the five sections concluding with their interview.  The last chapter reveals who was selected and why.  It was a fun read and a quick read.  I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun book. Please click on the author's name and book title above and enjoy the video that follows.  The video is about another book in the Elm Creek Quilts series but talks some about Chiaverini's writing in general.  

The Stolen Lady by Laura Morelli

 

The Stolen Lady

by

Laura Morelli

I finished reading The Stolen Lady by Laura Morelli late on the 14 of this month in a VRBO in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.  It is now ten days later and I feel well enough to write the book review.  Open heart mitral valve surgery is accompanied by a substantial recovery period.  I am just beginning my convalescence after my 5/15 surgery. The Stolen Lady has three story lines, all of which are good reads.  One of the story lines is the story of Leonardo De Vinci during the time that he was painting Lisa.  I did not realize he was so unreliable.  He ended up leaving the painting to the king of France to hang in the royal bath house upon his death.  Lisa's husband, who hired Leonardo to paint her, never got to own the painting.  Another of the story lines followed the woman who was Lisa's personal maid. It was rooted in the political history of Florence during that time frame and some of the core religious beliefs related to those political powers.  Also included are the details of Lisa's depression which was rooted in her loss of two infants.  Although she did have other children who grew to adulthood, Lisa blamed the rich way her family lived for the loss of the two children which she lost.  Leonardo De Vinci worked hard to draw Lisa out of sadness and did manage to capture her eventual smile.  The third story line of the book takes place during WWII and follows the story of an archivist who works at the Louvre.  She travels with the Mona Lisa and other works of art throughout the war to hide the art in various places of the free zone.  Eventually she ends up working with the resistance.  I enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it.  Please click on the author's name and book title above to follow links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

 

Company of Liars

by 

Karen Maitland

This novel sucked me in immediately and kept me reading.  After checking it out on my kindle less than two weeks ago, I stayed up late last night finishing it.  It is the story of nine people who are living  during the time of the plague in mid 1300s England.  They are traveling toward the north to leave the cities and coastal towns where the plague began, hoping to arrive in more rural towns with the cold weather which normally kills disease.  Although strangers,  nine travelers band together to make their journey safer and help each other along the way.  Each of the nine people have a secret from their past.  As their trip continues their secrets become known and they begin to be killed off one by one.  I found the beliefs and superstitions described in the novel about disease during medieval times very interesting.  Click  HERE  for  further content from the author's historical research.  Click on the book title and author's name above  for more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  I highly recommend this book.  I will definitely read more of Karen Maitland's work.  

Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon

Death at La Fenice

by 

Donna Leon

Normally I am a fan of historical fiction.  But sometimes I switch gears because I want a quick read.  At those times one of my go to authors is Donna Leon.  She writes mysteries in a Venetian setting.  Each of her novels addresses a social issue and her first novel, Death at La Fenice is no exception.  Written in the early 1990s, the issue chosen for this book, unfortunately remains an issue.  The mystery revolves around  a famous opera conductor who  is found dead in his dressing room between acts.  He was poisoned.  He was very talented and renown and in his early seventies.  During the investigation it is revealed that he is very strict with the conduct he allows in his singers and instrumentalists.  He is especially hard on homosexuals who he threatens to and sometimes does destroy their careers and their personal lives.  This comes out fairly early in the investigation and brings to the surface quite a few suspects.  But the police investigator continues to dig and finds out that this highly thought of man is a real creeper.  He has a taste for girls about age twelve who are usually sisters or daughters of women he establishes relationships with.  Therefore, over the course of his life, he has left a string of very angry and vengeful women.  This book has a good lesson for women to never let down one's guard where the safety of the girls around them are concerned.  This book also has a lesson for men who are sexual predators.  Sooner or later someone will likely make sure you get your just deserts.  The problem of our youth being victims of sexual violence continues. Today, one in nine girls are victims of sexual abuse or assault.    Click HERE for more information.  This novel is an easy read and a quick read.  I highly recommend it, or any of Donna Leon's books, for those that like a good mystery.  Please click on the book title or author's name above to follow the link. for more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

The Happiest Man On Earth by Eddie Jaku

 

The Happiest Man On Earth

by

Eddie Jaku

The year before his death in 202, one hundred year old Eddie Jaku wrote his memoir.  It is a quick read and outlines his life along with his formula for happiness.  Eddie was a Jewish man who survived the concentration camps during WWII.  After the allies took him to a hospital, near death, he was experiencing some anger and bitterness about all he experienced at the hands of the Nazis.  As his life progressed he was able to let go of hate and embrace love as a lifestyle.  He attributes his survival of the death camps to some important factors.  One is the relationships he had with friends and family.  Even though his parents were killed in the gas chambers,  his sister remained alive as did one of his best friends.  Relationships with them and other friendships he developed were an important ingredient of being able to continue living in the death camps.   Another thing he mentions that was important to his survival was hope.  Without hope people ran to the electric fence and grabbed on thereby electrocuting themselves.   Hope kept Eddie going.   A third thing that was important was helping others.  Eddie believes a life that includes service to others is necessary to survive in a community.  Those that survived the concentration camps did so by helping each other through it.  One hundred year old Eddie Jaku believed the secret to happiness is love, hope and cooperation.  Eddie volunteered at the Sydney Holocaust Museum and did a lot of speaking at schools and churches.  He was even invited to do a TED talk.  Eventually he wrote his book.  Please click on the author's name and book title above to learn more about Eddie.   And enjoy the video of his TED talk that follows.  We could all use a good dose of Eddie Jaku.  

Divided Hearts: A Civil War Friendship Quilt by Barbara Brackman

 

Divided Hearts: A Civil War Friendship Quilt

by

Barbara Brackman

Well known in the quilting world for her non fiction, historical books about quilting, Barbara Brackman's book, Divided Hearts: A Civil War Friendship Quilt, does not disappoint.  She presents twelve short biographical sketches of women who lived in the mid 1800s.  Some are well known women such as Teddy Roosevelts mom and Mary Todd Lincoln.  And some are women who are not as well known but nevertheless lived interesting lives.  Each biographical sketch is paired with a period quilt square and directions for that quilt square.  The book is delightfully illustrated with period photographs and pictures of the various ways to put together the same blocks, creating much different presentations with changes in color and arrangement.  Barbara Brackman has written several books, including her encyclopedia of blocks that has been digitized and  is part of the Electric Quilt software as an add on called "Block Base+".   This book is about autograph quilts from the Civil War era.  The author noticed civil war autograph quilts that were signed by northern and southern women alike so she began to research how they were connected.  Often southern young women were sent north for finishing school.  And it was not uncommon for southern families to spend the hottest part of the summer in the north to avoid diseases carried by insects in the heat of summer.  Friendships were formed and romances kindled that grew to marriages and intermingling of northern and southern families.  During the war years feelings of closeness didn't just disappear.  This book teaches us a lesson that is pertinent to today.  Relationships can continue in spite of very fundamental differences in belief systems and political opinions.  This book is a quick read and I enjoyed it very much.  It combined my interests of genealogy, social history, and quilting.  I highly recommend this author and intend to enjoy more of her work.  Please click on the links above and enjoy the video that follows.  

Death In A Strange Country by Donna Leon

 

Death In A Strange Country

by 

Donna Leon

Donna Leon is an author that writes mystery novels that are set in Venice.  She has a series that revolve around a police commissioner named Guido Brunetti.  This is the second book she wrote and she wrote it in the mid 1990s.  Each one of her books addresses not only the story line of the mystery but incorporates a social issue.  In this novel a young American soldier who is a health official at an American military base in Italy is murdered in Venice.  A week later his girlfriend, who is a doctor at the base, is murdered.  And soon a mafia connected businessman is robbed.  Surrounding these crimes and the investigation of them a ring of illegal toxic waste dumping emerges.  The illegal dumping of toxic waste is an international problem.  Most of the articles I found online were written eight or ten years ago but AI chimes in that it is still happening and it is happening here in the United States too. So I don't think it is an issue that has been resolved completely although we are not hearing a lot about it recently.   More information can be found HERE,  HERE and HERE.   This book is an interesting read as are all Donna Leon's novels.  They also are books that bring world wide problems to the surface.  Please click on the author's name and book title above and follow the links in the text for more information.  The video that follows also has more information.  

Beyond The Crushing Waves by Lilly Mirren

 

Beyond the Crushing Waves 

by

Lilly Mirren

We are all very aware of the orphan trains that carried children out of then crowded eastern United States cities to the western farms from about 1854 to 1929.  But a less known practice was Great Britian transporting orphans and poor children to their colonies as late at the 1950s.  Lilly Mirren taps into this historical practice in her novel Beyond The Crushing Waves and tells the fiction story of three children who navigate the move from London to Australia.  The book held my interest and peaked my curiosity to find out more.  Although Mary, Lottie and Harry lives turn out well,  not all the children who were sent to colonies had such a happy ending to their lives.  There are a couple of organizations advocating for the victims of this practice.  The International Association of Former Child Migrants and Their Families and The Family Restoration Fund both work with the people who went through this relocation process.  I enjoyed this novel very much and found it to be a fast read.  I highly recommend it.  Please click on the links in the text and on the book title and author's name above to follow the links to learn more.  And enjoy the video that follows.  

 

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

 

A Dance With Dragons

by 

George R. R. Martin

The last book that George R R Martin has completed in his Song Of Ice and Fire series is A Dance With Dragons.  This book was over eleven hundred pages long and I had to renew it, although I only kept it seven days past the renewal date before I completed it.  This is the first of the books that I noticed was much different than the television series.  In the other four books there were lots of similarities and the differences were in the details.  But in this novel the story line is not the same as the Game of Thrones television series.  It is obvious the television writers veered off in order to complete their programming,  The book continues to have much more detail and be more tastefully handled than the television series.  It does still have its fair share of sex and violence.  It pulls back into the story some of the characters that were left out of the fourth novel while still continuing the threads of the main characters. Cersei has her famous walk of shame in this novel and Arya is learning her art in the house of many faces. Two of the areas that are much different are the sections about the House of Greyjoy and the story line about Stannis.  Also Sansa's story is handled much differently.  As good as the television series was,  the books outshine them by far. I have my fingers crossed that George R R Martin will be able to finish writing his series.   Please click on the links at the book title and author's name above and enjoy the video that follows.