false 27 110 105 true 5687741 read 2 true 2791854 currently-reading 3 true 2791853 to-read 15 false 2962960 the-one-true-church---knitting 10 false 2962998 quilts 9 false 2962927 long-ago-reads http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/60971519 to: Living a Year of Kaddish: A Memoir (Paperback) by Ari Goldman
(I know: I'm a laugh riot! Bring on the death books!)

I enjoyed this book for the information about the history of the Kaddish prayer and surrounding rituals. A reporter and journalism professor, the author conveys information in an interesting, straightforward way, and he has an instinct for the telling historical anecdote.

As memoir, I found it curiously dry and cold. There seems to be much left unsaid--too much--about his relationships with his father and mother. These people are at the heart of the book, but are presented with detachment. The author's voice is often emotionally remote, despite the deep emotions he describes. The tone is clinical, somehow. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/56393043 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Hardcover) by Mary Ann Shaffer
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54834159 Wendy's review of The Reader
by Bernhard Schlink

Such a good movie (if you like that sort of thing, and I do). ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54792310 Brideshead Revisited (Paperback) by Evelyn Waugh
bookshelves: currently-reading
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/54254418 to: The Uncommon Reader: A Novella (Hardcover) by Alan Bennett
A thoroughly enjoyable evocation/imagination of Queen Elizabeth's day-to-day life, her personality, and her thinking. Full of whimsy and bookish jokes (of which I understood only a fraction but hey--I'm just not that well educated). I highly recommend it as bathtub reading, and my copy has the rippled pages to prove it. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book/recommendation/283468 Kay recommended the book Sima's Undergarments for Women to Emma

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]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/48443816 to: Sima's Undergarments for Women (Hardcover) by Ilana Stanger-Ross
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/47615451 to: Indignation (Hardcover) by Philip Roth
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45456058 to: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Paperback) by Erik Larson
This book had been recommended to me so heartily by so many people that I kept meaning to read it and then for some reason, didn't. Now that I've read it, I'm one of the hearty recommenders. It's a great read. A time and place, Chicago 1893, comes to life. I can't really put my finger on why the main story--essentially of an overambitious construction project that gets thrown together shoddily but impressively, with much ego-clashing--is so compelling. I think it's that sensation of time travel, the realness of the world the book describes.

The other, parallel story--about a seedy serial killer in the Ted Bundy mode--was less interesting to me, but it did temper the "Lives of Great Architects" tone of the book. A gruesome, depressing story told with attention to detail, even the details that had to be filled in by the author's imagination, and to the character of the killer, his victims and his accomplices. A twisted, ingenious little man who will make you squirm--and the women who loved him.


]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/45456199 to: Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts (Hardcover) by Joelle Hoverson
I've had this book for over a year. Initially it was just an inspiration and idea book for me (the pictures are gorgeous), but I continue to use the book as a how-to reference. The instructions make sense to me, and I know that the Joelle way of doing whatever it is I need to do (attach a quilt binding, miter a corner, etc.) is likely to be a good, traditional method.

I rarely follow anybody else's actual pattern for a quilt, but I did follow the "Cutting Corners" quilt instructions pretty faithfully, and it came out beautifully. The projects are tweaked classics that are not going to get stale, and are easily adapted to your own esthetic.
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