July '25 Books

 Ten books read in July.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is the first book I've read by this author and a Reese's Book Club pick. I don't think of myself as an Anglophile, but it does seem that English movies, books and TV programs are smarter - better story telling than American fare. This was my favorite fiction read of the month.

All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett is also a Reese's Book Club choice.  A Smith College scholarship graduate from a working class background moves to London to pursue a master's in literature. She falls in with the upper class. Billed as a Jane Austen inspired 'coming of age' book

Sting and Overkill are two more of the books by Sandra Brown that I'm reading my way through.

We All Live Here is the newest novel by Jojo Moyes. When I saw my first book by her, I didn't think it would have much substance. I realize I was basing that entirely on her first name. I'm so glad I read that book anyway and many more since. She is a great writer. The 'all' living in a house that is in need of much repair includes her two daughters and her step-father - then her wayward, absent for thirty-five years, father shows up. This is such a fun, serious, thoughtful read about what it means to be family.

Isola is by Allegra Goodman a new author for me. Not only a Reese's Book Club pick, it was one Bud picked that he thought I would like - based entirely on the cover - a woman standing high upon a cliff. It was a good read, inspired by the real life of a sixteenth century woman.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is by another new author for me, V.E. Schwab. It tells the stories of three young women living in different centuries. It is not a book I would have read had I not been so far into it before realizing it was about vampires. However, it was well written and interesting and I hate to give up on a book once I've started it.

Friction is another of the many Sandra Brown books I've been reading.

Remember Us by Robert M. Edsel begins with Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands May 10, 1940 and follows the lives of twelve main characters over a six-year span mostly set in the small rural province of Limburg. This is my favorite non-fiction book this month barely edging out....  

Taking Manhattan by Russell Shorto - a book of The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. Also non-fiction, but not quite as well written as the previously mentioned one. 

What totally got my attention on the first page was the footnote: *There are many names for the Indigenous people native to the region, including Lenape, Munsee, Munsee Lenape, Lennie Lenape, Delaware.

Lennie Lenape - that was the name of the tribe my 7x great-grandfather was a chieftan of - which made the book even more interesting. And there he was on page 94 - Lenape chief Lapowinsa - the same photo, but in black and white, as the one I pictured on my April 27, 2024 blog "Meet My Native American 7xGreat-Grandfather".  This book was more about the Dutch and English than the native tribes but just finding this familial link made it more interesting to me. 

Incidentally, Bud picked these last two books for me, too, which reminds me - I should listen to him more often and I should be reading more non-fiction. 

It is time to head back to the library. I wonder what my August books read list will look like. 😉

Place to Be

How quickly July has passed - one more poem before August arrives:

Place to Be By Robert Creeley

Days the weather sits
in the endless sky,
the clouds drifting by

The winter's snow,
summer's heat,
same street.

Nothing changes
but the faces, the people,
all the things they do

'spite of heaven and hell
or city hall—
Nothing's wiser than a moment.

No one's chance
is simply changed by wishing,
right or wrong.

What you do is how you get along.
What you did is all it ever means.

Iowa's "Blind Pig Soap"

This morning a Facebook page about Iowa towns and their histories, which I follow, shared an old 1898 newspaper advertisement for Pearline Soap. I don't remember that laundry soap, but.....

.... it did prickle a memory of this soap, a bar of which was left behind on the basement shelves of the rental house we moved into near Des Moines in 1969.

I never used it, but knew the P and G stood for Proctor and Gamble - which led me to a 1917 ad for "P and G the White Naptha Soap" and an article that included part of a song written by Newfoundland folk singer.

Oh, you women folks of Newfoundland,
attend to what I say,
I mean to make it easy for you on washing day;
And when you use your washing soap,
I want you all to see,
When you’re taking off the wrapper
that it’s stamped with a “P G” 

The Proctor and Gamble Company was based in Cincinnati. In 1920 a resident there had just returned from a trip to Iowa. He reported that: "In Iowa, grocers say they sell more 'P-G' soap than any other kind. Iowa citizens call it Blind Pig Soap." Mystified as to why such a strange name would be given to the soap that made Cincinnati famous .... "because P-G soap has no I (eye)."

This 'Blind Pig Soap' story was new to me. It is the kind of factoid that I find informational and get a kick out of. 

It is also somewhat ironic - the first pig I raised after moving back home in '78 was Rupert. He really was blind.

Family Before Fireworks

We have two great-grandsons whose birthdays are June 30, Greyson, 10, and July 1, Ayden, 11, which makes them both ten years old for one day. 

Because their birthdays are close to the 4th of July celebrating them and Independence Day is usually combined.

It is always such a joy to see the little ones and mark how they have changed. Great-grandson, Henri, here with his mother, Kathryn, is the whose growth is most apparent. Last time we saw him he wasn't walking, now he is. And he just gets cuter and more personable each time we see him.

Henri's big brother, Louis, and his Dad, Travis, were enjoying some age appropriate fireworks.

Louis not only showed me his 'poppers', he shared one with me.

They didn't have to be lit, only thrown on pavement to POP.

Ten year old Greyson, always ready with a smile and hug.

 Ayden and Greyson playing in the water.

Louis and Henri doing the same thing. The slip and slide was new and they were all making the most of it.

The high temperatures and sunshine were perfect for their play.

Then Aunt Dominique got in on it.

I think she had as much fun - or more - than the boys did.

While all the fun was going on outside, Dominique's husband Ian was working away installing new ceiling tiles in his in-law's dining room.

I don't think there is much this guy can't do, and he does it willingly.

I think the young ones were going to move the fun to a pool, but it was time for the old folks to go home.

We live close enough to McKinley Lake/Park to see the fireworks from our deck.

Neither of us are big fireworks fans, see a few and that's enough. 

I took this picture through the window. 

Another birthday and 4th of July celebration in the books. 

Using Water To Make Pudding

I planned to take a couple of salads to the family 4th of July gathering tomorrow - my cauliflower and pea salad and lemon jello with crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges. Monday I bought what I needed. Yesterday I put together the pea salad except for the cheese because that doesn't get added until shortly before eating.

This morning I made the jello so it could partially set before adding the fruit.

While the water was heating, two boxes of jello went into a large bowl. I poured in two cups of boiling water and began stirring.

That's funny, the jello is already beginning to thicken.

 

That was when I realized I had purchased lemon pudding and pie filling, not gelatin.

At least I hadn't opened the cans of pineapple and oranges yet. 

Yes, I could have gone back to the store and gotten Jello gelatin, but didn't. I had said I would bring a salad or two. So one it is. Sorry kids.

In the meantime, I tasted the pudding mixture made with water instead of milk. It wasn't bad at all; edible in fact. Good to know in case I want pudding sometime and am out of milk.

I've known for some time now that I need to check and then double check everything I do before doing it. But really, those boxes look much alike, don't they? 

Hope you have a happy and safe 4th. For certain no one will be putting me in charge of the fireworks!   🎆🎇

The Path

 

The Path Through Dune and Memory (Kevin McManus)

The wind does not forget this place—

a whispering tongue in brittle grass,

where footsteps fade but never vanish,

etched in the lean of withered dune.

She walks the crooked, salt-blown path

as if returning from a dream,

the hem of night clinging to her coat,

hair swept like smoke toward forgotten skies.

Above, the crows rise in a scattered psalm,

a black benediction cast in flight.

They do not mourn, not truly—

only echo what has passed beneath.

No names are spoken here aloud,

only thought, half-formed and frail

like the bones of sea-washed driftwood

that line the trail with silent grace.

And still she walks—

not forward, not quite back,

but into that thin, wind-worn space

where the dead speak softest

and the living listen best

Kevin McManus is an Irish poet.

The photo is one I took on South Padre Island.