June 2022 Reading List

Dressed by Iris takes on the perspective of Iris, her beau John and her brother as they navigate the 1930’s. On her birthday Iris receives a purple ribbon from John and then a hat from her Dad. She puts them together to create something beautiful, that is admired by all in town.

The book covers topics like religious differences, alcholohism, gambling, corruption, the opening of Sydney harbour bridge and poverty. You get a real sense of the time and are inspired by a poor girl, Iris, with little education has a natural flair for fashion and is on her way to a better life.

Book Lovers was in the 2022 Modern Mrs Darcy Summer Reading Guide and even though it seemed like it was a classic – girl not interested in boy but eventually they get it on – there was much more to it.

Nora is a literary agent. Charlie is a book editor and they don’t like each other. By chance they end up in the same country town and they can’t avoid one another. From there we get to know about Nora and Charlie’s family and how they have more in common than they realise.

A humourous book with insights into people, their behaviours and what it’s like to be a book lover. I ended up highlighting a lot of passages on my Kobo because I loved the turn of phrase that was used. Not something I usually do for a fictional book.

For example:

I feel like I’m sugar under a blowtorch, like he’s caramelizing my blood.

The Dictionary of Lost Words was a free audiobook on Audible in November 2021. At the time I wasn’t listening to many audiobooks (the account was really for my son), but when I was looking for something to listen to while sewing I thought this would be a great companion.

The story is about Esme. Her father is a lexicographer, and is part of the team working on the very first Oxford English Dictionary in a garden shed in Oxford called the ‘Scriptorium’. Esme spends time under the table in the ‘Scriptorium’ and finds a slip of paper with the word “bondmaid” on it. From then on she collects more fallen words as well as some from people she meets.

The details on creating the dictionary are based on facts that Pip Williams has so thoroughly researched, though Esme and her story are fictional. We get an understanding of what an arduous process was like to create a dictionary, something I’d never given any thought to.

Based on true facts that author Pip Williams has so thoroughly researched, we get an understanding of what an arduous process it was to create a dictionary.

There were references to South Australia, which perked my ears up and after further investigation I found that the author lives in the Adelaide Hills. A fellow South Aussie!

Narrated by Imogen Sage, it runs for 12 hours and 42 minutes.

Linda Gask is a psychiatrist and this is the story of her lifelong struggle with her own mental health. It covered many treatment methods and some of the latest research, which was quite insightful. With all this knowledge Linda has found that she is her best on her own in a cottage in Orkney in the Northern Isles of Scotland.

Narrated by the author, it runs for 7 hours and 38 minutes.

Stephen Joseph is a psychologist that encountered authenticity through Carl Rogers. He understood authenticity as “being the author of one’s own life”. Rogers created “client-centred therapy” based on the idea that for people to feel truly accepted for who they are they shouldn’t have to put up a facade.

Joseph explained that when you are authentic you are being purposeful, meaningful, more creative, use your strengths, happier, more realistic, more harminious with others, have deeper relationships, and cope better with stress. However being inauthentic is exhausting, blame others, refuse to admit failings, defensive and distort reality.

The message is to know yourself, own yourself and be yourself, to live an authentic life.

The premise is that if we live to be 80 we will have 4,000 weeks. Burkeman explains that time is now seen as a resource that needs to be used and the rise of productivity methods are a trap. They are techniques to make you more efficient so that you can get everything done, but that’s not what we should be doing. We should be making the tough choices and do things that really count for us.

At the end of the day we need to accept that we will always have problems, we can’t do it all, we have limited talents and we can’t control events or other people. And no one really cares anyway what we do. So choose to do the things that enlarge you, not diminish you, and get started today.

I listened to These Precious Days while quilting and running errands. It is a collection of essays that cover various aspects of Patchett’s life. There is an overlap between the essays, but it makes it all the more richer.

A memorable reflection was of her owning a book shop and being asked at the supermarket what to do with a child who didn’t want to read. Patchett told them to bring them into the book shop, get the Captain Underpants book, sit on one of the dog beds and get them to read to one of the dogs. They came the next day and it worked a treat. I love a good dog story.

But the saddest and ironically the most joyous was of her relationship with friend Sooki Raphael who stayed with her when getting treatment for Pancreatic cancer. They had such an intimate realtionship, heightened by the COVID-19 lockdown, that truly changed their lives.

Highly recommend this read!

Narrated by the author, it runs for 11 hours and 13 minutes.

Since reading Susan Cain’s book, Quiet years ago and identifying myself as an introvert I love to read books about being an introvert. But, I didn’t read the subtitle of the book, and I should have. It’s directed at introverts working in organisations, and as I’m not in that situation at present, I couldn’t truly put the advice into practise.

Written by Jill Chang, an agent for Major League Baseball players, she relates how she read Cain’s book and others, and used that knowledge to work successfully with others. Now she wants to share that knowledge so that introverts and extroverts can work successfully together.

Of course I have heard about Kaffe Fasset, I even went to one of his presentations when he came to Adelaide when a fellow Australian Sewing Guild member gave me her ticket when she couldn’t go. So when I saw this book in the library with the promise of “going behind the scenes” I wanted to learn a bit more about him.

Filled with hundreds of photos we get to see his London House and Studio, learn about who he works with so that he can achieve so much, what inspires him, the design process, the importance of travel and how he has evolved as a master colorist. I feel that through his words and photos I have gotten to know him a lot better and appreciate what he has created over the years.

The book also includes three quilt patterns, three needlepoint cushion projects and three knitting projects.

For a sneak peak of some of the photos in the book see Kaffe’s website – https://www.kaffefassett.com/kaffefassettinthestudio/

Get the printed book so you can fully appreciate the photography.