The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim Defede

The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland by Jim DeFede
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The inspiring story of a small town (pop. 10,000) which was the site of a little used international airport, who hosted over 6,000 passengers and crew when the terrorist attacks on 9/11 caused the United States to shut down their airspace for several days. The airport used to be an important refueling point for overseas flights before newer, more efficient jets all but eliminated the need for it. But it maintained the capacity, both in infrastructure and aviation personnel to allow 38 jets coming from Europe, in the air at the time of the attacks, to safely land until cleared to move on.
The people of Gander immediately opened their doors to those stranded, providing them with meals, bedding, compassion, and even the shirts off their backs, as the passengers were forbidden to access their checked luggage during their almost week long stay. Pharmacists worked tirelessly to obtain and fill new prescriptions for those who needed medication, churches and schools and civic organizations opened their doors to provide places for them to sleep, ways for them to contact loved ones, and to give them a sense of safety in a world gone crazy. The book shared so many examples and stories, it was an inspirational read.

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The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This joins the growing collection of women wartime heroes that I've been reading over the past few years, including The Book of Lost Names, The Nightingale and Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler, to name a few. This book tells the story of Eve, a member of the Alice Network of women spies during World War I, who contributed valuable information on enemy movements and plans, while posing as an unassuming innocent. I enjoyed this book, the dual timelines of WWI and post WWII worked well, the characters were well researched and believable.

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Newspaper, Pennies, Cardboard, and Eggs--For Growing a Better Garden: More than 400 New, Fun, and Ingenious Ideas to Keep Your Garden Growing Great All Season Long by Roger Yepsen

Newspaper, Pennies, Cardboard, and Eggs--For Growing a Better Garden: More than 400 New, Fun, and Ingenious Ideas to Keep Your Garden Growing Great All Season Long by Roger Yepsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A summer doesn't go by without me reading a new gardening book. This one, from Rodale Press, gave me a dozen new ideas to try, from making a spray from tansy or garlic scapes to use on cabbage worms, to instructions on how to smoke some of my peppers for chipoltes, and using sweet woodruff at the base of our trees (to cut down on weeds) to reusing the winter protection framework for summer bean trellising. Time to go try out some of those new ideas!

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The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5/5.0 - Loved this book that takes place in the NYPL, and a tiny town in upstate NY. A group of cartographic students meet their freshman year at the UW, form a tiny friendship that lasts throughout their academic career, and spend the summer after their PhDs in a small town in the Catskills, after which their lives are never the same. Highly recommend!

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My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

My Name Is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - Mary Sutter is a midwife who lives in Albany, NY when the Civil War begins. She desperately wants to learn to be a doctor/surgeon, but can find no one to teach her, nor be admitted to a medical school. When her brother and brother-in-law go off to fight, she decides to follow, hoping to join the nursing corps headed up by Dorothea Dix. Though rejected by Miss Dix, she travels from hospital to hospital until she finds one who will take her. She develops quite a reputation for her skill and hard work. I enjoyed this book a lot, it was well researched and accurately portrayed the advances made in medicine as a result of the Civil War.

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The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love by Alice A. Carter

The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love by Alice A. Carter
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

5.0/5.0 - Obtained through the generous ILL from UT Knoxville, this biographical volume of three early 20th century female artists and illustrators was fascinating. Jessie Wilcox Smith and Elizabeth Shippen Green had an outstanding career providing illustrations for magazines such as Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, and for books such as a Child's Garden of Verses and Longfellow's Evangeline. Oakley was a renown muralist with work in Ohio and Pennsylvania state buildings. The three women, along with a non-artist friend named Henrietta Cousins lived together for many years, supporting each other and furthering their works. The name of the book comes from a home the four women shared, called the Red Rose Inn. The book also includes wonderful examples of their work.

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The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart

The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.0/5.0 - Coincidentally, I read this book on the heels of Their Eyes Were Watching God, which also has a turpentine camp during the depression as one of its settings. The turpentine industry was essential to the navy to provide solvent that kept wooden ships watertight. Prior to reading these two books, I was totally unfamiliar with this process. It involved slashing pine trees to obtain their resin, which was shipped off for processing. The work was hard, hot, and the living conditions were poor. The camps were operated on a peonage system, meaning workers were paid in scrip, and perpetually in debt to the company store.
This is the background for the story of Del, Rae and Cornelia. Del comes to the camp after nearly dying in a deliberate corn silo "accident" staged by his employer because he has seduced his wife. Rae comes after her husband dies, and Cornelia is married to the cruel, store owner, Otis. Through a series of circumstances, they help each other survive and escape Swallow Hill.
The author does a good job in bringing both the setting and the characters to life, and I felt like I learned something from the book.

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