![]() |
Colours in her Hands / Alice Zorn Calgary, AB: Freehand Books, c2024. 350 p. |
This was an intriguing book that I liked for a number of reasons. There's embroidery, there's Montreal, dance, colour and family drama.
Notes & Quotes from a Literary Librarian
![]() |
Colours in her Hands / Alice Zorn Calgary, AB: Freehand Books, c2024. 350 p. |
![]() |
Let's Move the Needle / Shannon Downey North Adams, MA: Storey, c2024. 254 p. |
Her area is cross-stitch and embroidery, so that's the examples she uses. But this book isn't just about the craft, it's really focused on the activism part. She encourages all artistic practices - fibre arts, visual arts, dance, music, etc, to get involved, using whatever your practice is in the service of activist ends.
I really liked this book, it was practical, wide-ranging, and inspiring all in one. She goes over some ways that craft has been used in political settings in the past, then shares some contemporary projects, but the heart of the book is the introspection required to be effective. She has many interactive questions to go through so that you can narrow your focus down on the 1-3 main issues you want to be engaging with. It's an important element, becoming aware of what is important to you and why. And then how you'll pursue that in future.
Once you have an idea of where you would like to focus, the rest of the book explains how to work with others - how to form groups, keep them running, use the logic model to plan outcomes (ie: know the WHY of any project), evaluate, and maybe even end a project. She incorporates instruction on tactics, planning documents and more, to make this easy for those new to organizing.
She does mention in her opening that craftivism can sometimes be seen as 'gentle' and non-confrontational, but that's not where's she's at with it. Her craft is a tool to speak loudly about the social justice you want to see.
With the useful tools, the logical layout, and the points illustrated with some her own hoop art, this is a great book. Very to the point, it has a goal and gives you the wherewithal to join in and, as she says, "Build Community and Make Change". Worthwhile for anyone interested in craftivism, community building and Moving the Needle!
![]() |
Mina's Matchbox / Yoko Ogawa trans. from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder TO: McLelland & Stewart, 2024, c2006. 288 p. |
![]() |
There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job / Kikuko Tsumura trans. from the Japanese by Polly Barton London: Bloomsbury, 2020, c2015. 416 p. |
![]() |
The Book Shop / Penelope Fitzgerald Boston: Mariner Books, 1997, c1978. 123 p. |
Ah, opening a bookshop! Isn't it everyone's dream? (I tried it myself at one point; harder than it looks). In this book, probably fairly well known now thanks to the movie, Florence Green decides to start a bookshop in Hardborough.
This is 1959, it's a small seaside town, and Florence decides to take her widow's inheritance and start a bookshop, because of course a town without one desires one! But she encounters many, many obstacles. First off, a cold, old building with a damp cellar - and apparently a poltergeist too. And then suspicious locals. And envious shopkeepers once she begins to become a bit of a success. And spite from the local woman who considers herself the artistic arbiter of the area, and doesn't like someone else claiming culture.
Because it's Fitzgerald writing I didn't expect any goodness to be rewarded, or for the powerful and selfish to do anything but succeed in their bullying. And, well, I was right. I do find her quite bleak and cynical a lot of the time. Even though her writing is sharp, crisp, acidic and never sentimental, which can be refreshing. She has an eye for the ways in which people reveal who they are, and the ways in which privilege corrupts. The insularity of this small town, and the ways in which those with connections rule the roost, even if they are unworthy of it, is finely drawn here.
The highlights of this story are the bookish bits. Any reader will enjoy the discussion of the books themselves, while as a librarian and former bookseller, the parts about the day to day operations of the shop were entertaining and relatable.
But in the end, this is a sad book with a depressing ending. Mulish insularity and small town politics win the day and the idealist, the lover of books and gentle soul, fails in her quest to educate and enlarge the world for these residents. I can't say that I love Fitzgerald's writing - I admire her skill, and find much to appreciate, but her cynicism about human nature is often off-putting for me as a reader. This one is hard to evaluate because of that balance between cleverness, bookishness, and the opposing idea that nasty people always come out on top. It felt maybe too realistic to really take to heart.
![]() |
A Winter's Love / Madeleine L'Engle NY: Open Road Media, 2017. c1957. 356 p. |
It was ok; very of its time, 1957 to be exact. The plot is that Emily Brown, wife and mother, is living in Switzerland for a year during her husband's sabbatical. Well, it was supposed to be a sabbatical, but he has lost his teaching job so it's really just time away from home -- everything was set so they decided to go ahead. They have 2 daughters, one an older teen and one a 6 year old (who reads very young). We find out further into the book that they had another daughter who died when she was 8 -- this adds to the feeling of estrangement in this marriage. After that experience, and the loss of his job, Courtney has withdrawn emotionally from Emily. And now, in Switzerland, they meet up with an old New York friend, Abe Fielding. And he and Emily struggle with the fact that they are falling in love.
Along with this key dilemma, we have the older daughter Vee and her friend Mimi home for the holidays (this is set over Christmas, which is why I thought I'd read it now, but it is very much not festive, barely relevant to the story at all). Mimi is very mature and worldly wise, but Vee is so neurotic. She has hysterics over her parents behaviours (all quite mild), she takes everything way too hard, and makes herself sick with anxiety. Emily herself is slightly neurotic and can hardly make up her mind to anything.
And there's a nearby 'friend', Gertrude, who is ill and living in a chalet there with a man - unmarried! Gasp! Gertrude was a resistance fighter in the war, which is very close, not even 10 years in the past. This colours the book as well. But Gertrude is also supremely bored, self-centred and melodramatic. She precipitates some of the action, both intentionally and accidentally.
I really liked the setting of this book, and the very natural realism of war still overshadowing the characters. The characters have artistic leanings - piano, poetry, classical music, etc. - as expected in any of L'engle's books I've read. I always look for the artists and scientists in her books, it's an element I really enjoy. And I like her way of writing.
But overall I found this plot far too full of indecision, melodrama and neuroticism to really enjoy it. The core dilemma is a bit dated and some of the side characters are almost unbearably unlikeable. I have a few more of L'engle's books still unread, though, and this won't keep me from reading them. Or rereading some of the others that I haven't read for years!
![]() |
The Buddha in the Attic / Julie Otsuka NY: Knopf, c2011. 144 p. |
In eight short sections, Otsuka outlines the lives of a group of 'picture brides' coming to San Francisco from Japan in the early 20th Century. She follows their fortunes as they meet their husbands (none like their photos) and work hard in the fields, shops or as maids. In very few words she illuminates a wide range of lives - from their relationships with their husbands, children, wider local Japanese community, those left at home and of course American society. Abusive husbands, childbirth, prejudice, hard hard work, all is shown here.
The writing style in this book is one of the highlights for me as well. The narration is like a chorus, using "we" at all times, even when describing an individual experience. It really works and I found it both poetic and really effective. It's incantatory, revealing the shared experience of these Japanese women.
The final section of the book is set during the start of the Japanese Internment camps during WWII. It's disturbing and so visceral. After building up the life stories of the women who worked so hard to belong in their new homes, seeing the senseless war mania that led to the camps is horrifying.
This last section also uses the same "we" narrative, but it shifts to the non-Japanese people left in the towns after the Japanese have been carted off. I didn't think this worked as well, after the rest of the book focusing entirely on the inner lives of the Japanese women. But it was necessary to show what remained, and the behaviour of those who hadn't said anything one way or another in the face of this event.
The feel of the book is a little dream-like, a little epic, even if it is pretty short. It's a powerful and sensory read, one that opens up a part of history that's important to tell. A great find.