Vol. 36, No. 3
September 2006

IS IT COOL ENOUGH FOR A QUILT YET?

Maybe not, especially in Phoenix, but an article in ‘the reader’s shelf’ section of the May 1, 2006 issue of Library Journal titled When Life Gives Your Scraps, Make a Quilt gave suggestions for books with a quilting tie-in. The Library owns several of the books on the list plus a few more, so with a nod to Library Journal, here are some fiction books that involve quilts and quilting.

How to Make an American Quilt (RC32763) by Whitney Otto was a best-seller back in 1992 and is a novel pieced together from short stories about the lives of seven women who belong to a weekly quilting group. The ladies of a Kansas quilting group help each other get through the Depression in The Persian Pickle Club (AZC2731), but their unity is threatened when a nosy city girl joins the group.

We have a few mysteries with a quilting theme as well. Two by Earlene Fowler take their names from quilt patterns, Irish Chain (RC42553) and Fool’s Puzzle (RC42552). In a mystery by Alisa Craig, The Grub-and-Stakers Quilt a Bee (RC32909), the women of a gardening and rowing club in Ontario inherit an old home that has a mysterious antique quilt in its attic. Stitches in Time (RC42115) by Barbara Michaels tells the suspenseful tale of Rachel, a doctoral candidate in art history who also works in an antiques shop, a tranquil place until the shop receives an old bridal quilt. Who knew quilts could be so dangerous?

The Quilt (RC38975) by T. Davis Bunn is the simple, moving story of a elderly woman whose last project will be to create a quilt that tells her story and in the process changes the lives of all those who come to quilt with her.

We are expecting two more books with a quilting theme to be available in the next few months. One is Emilie Richard’s Endless Chain (RC62582). In this mystery/romance, a young minister in the Shenandoah Valley falls in love with the young woman he hired to run his Hispanic outreach program. Both his job and their safety are threatened. Finally, our volunteers are working hard on recording Sarah’s Quilt, the wonderful sequel to the hugely popular, These is My Words (AZC2519).