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The Literate Quilter

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Books. Quilts. What I Love.

  • Anton Chekhov: Earliest Stories

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    The earliest of them, in particular, introduce us to an irreverent young comic writer trying his hand at different genres, with the sole aim of entertaining his readers. from Anton Chekhov: Earliest Stories, Introduction by Rosamund Bartlett

    Volunteers from across the world collaborated to translate Anton Chekhov’s earliest works which were written for the magazine market while he was a medical student. They are entertaining reading full of humor and satire.

    The forms of the stories are diverse. “Holiday Assignments” purposes to be student essays. “Comic Advertisements and Notices” includes book titles at a local shop. including Teach Yourself Passionate Love, or, Oh, You Brute! by Idiotov and Dictionary of all the indecent words used around the world. There are math tests with questions such as “My mother-in-law is 75, but my wife is 42. What time is it?” There is an Almanac. Some stories read like folk tales. As Antosha Chekhonte he shares a collection of “Philosophical Definitions of Life” including “Our life is like a typesetter’s drawer filled with punctuation marks. (Confucius).”

    “The Artist’s Wives” tells of a writer and his self-centered pursuit, demeaning his unfortunate wife who is only valued as an unpaid copyist. Other artists in the boarding house are just as bad, abusing their suffering wives. The story ends by warning female readers from becoming involved with artists.

    Some stories have a bite to them. In “The Wolf Baiting”, a child is brought to see the so-called sport for the wolves killed before they can harm the dogs meant to attack him. What is the purpose of this sport? Is it for entrainment, or betting and takings? Chekhov ends with, “One can offset all the costs with the takings, but it is impossible to offset the small injuries this bating may have inflicted on the young should of the aforementioned schoolboy.”

    In “The Mistress” a wealthy woman forces her coachman to serve her sexually, ruining his marriage. “Are you even human,” the mistresses explodes while impelling a servant to force the coachman to return to work.

    Rosamund Bartlett’s Introduction offers a wonderful overview of Chekhov’s works and background to the stories and their publication.

    A delightful collection of tales.

    Thanks to Cherry Orchard Books for a free book.

    Anton Chekhov. Earliest Stories: Stories, Novellas, Humoresques, 1880–1882
    by Anton Chekhov; Rosamund Bartlett (editor), Elena Michajlowska (editor)
    Cherry Orchard Books
    Hardcover Published November 4, 2025
    ISBN: 9798887198088
    Paperback Published November 4, 2025
    ISBN: 9798887198095
    Kindle Edition Pub Date March 24, 2026
    ISBN: 9798887198118

    from the publisher
    This volume presents the first comprehensive annotated edition of Chekhov’s earliest stories in English. Translated as part of a unique project involving 85 volunteers from 9 countries, the 58 stories were all written between 1880 and 1882, when Chekhov was in his early twenties, and still at medical school. They make up volume 1 of the 10 volumes of short stories in the authoritative thirty-volume Academy of Sciences edition of Chekhov’s Complete Collected Works, and have been arranged in chronological order. Ranging from comic tales, hilarious skits, literary parodies, outrageous pot-boilers and poignant novellas, the stories are all aimed at a wide audience, and offer a revealing window into the unknown early chapter of Chekhov’s life and literary career.

  • The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love, ed. Alice Hoffman

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    Reader, I adopted him.

    from Alvin by Jodi Picoult in The Best Dog in the World

    I have known eight dogs who meant the world to me. My first companion came to me when I was five years old. Pepper followed me to school one day and appeared at my classroom door. She laid her chin in the crook of my back as I watched tv or colored. I loved her soft floppy ears.

    As an adult, my husband and I had successively two black and tan male dachshunds. Pippin was high spirited and went on vacations with us. PJ was bossy and demanded a hour of fetch every day. Our son’s first word was the dog’s name.

    Then for sixteen years our first Shiba Inu, Kili, was the heart of our family, the dog our son grew up with. Friendly, beautiful, intelligent, a real chick magnet when our son walked her. When he went off to college, she jumped into the car hoping to go with him.

    After her came more Shibas. There was Suki, a puppy mill breeder who had never been socialized with people or dogs. She was the smartest dog we ever had and understood things like “lets go right”. We got her a companion, Kara, who had been a breeder in a puppy mill for nine years. Friendly and loveable, he taught Kili how to cuddle and play chase. Sadly, he had kidney failure and was gone a year later. Suki was devastated with his loss so we brought home another puppy mill breeder, Kamikaze, a brash, bossy and spirited girl. She and Suki grew old together. And last year we brought home Tessa whose owner had died. She spent three months in a local shelter. She avoids being touched so people passed her by. Tessa loves walks and playing chase and sleeps at my feet. She is no longer fearful of hands, but avoids being touched still.

    The Best Dog in the World is a heartwarming series of essays on how dogs changed each writer’s life, even the difficult dogs, the problem dogs, the ugly dogs, as well as the gorgeous dogs and those who brought comfort and healing.

    Alice Hoffman writes that when growing up, “I had long ago realized that the member of my family I was closest to was my dog.” As an adult, her Houdini ‘trained himself’ while Hoffman was busy with jobs and school.

    Emily Henry’s Dottie was the saddest specimen in the shelter, unloved and scared and likely soon to die if not adopted. It took her months to learn to trust. Bonnie Garmus rescued a greyhound who understood when people or animals needed comforting. Tova Mirvis brought home Sunny during the pandemic and is a comfort as the growing children leave home. Roxane Gay’s animal loving wife convinced her they needed a dog and over time realized they were obsessed with each other.

    Adriana Trigiani’s daughter knew that Lola chose her knowing they were the lucky ones. Jodi Picoult’s rescue was “the dog equivalent of Napoleon”, small but imperious. Isabel Allende ‘s dog saw ghosts. Chris Bohjalian writes, “I’ve made three incontrovertibly wise decisions in my life: Marrying that woman. Becoming a parent. And listening to my wife when she said we were getting a dog.”

    The truth is that we love our dogs not just for who they are, but sometimes in spite of it. Not all dogs are angels. from Alvin by Jodi Picoult

    Laura Zigman’s son wanted a sibling but got a dog. He knew “That’s my dog” upon first sight. Veterinarian Nick Trout tells of the heartbreak of a failed surgery on a dog. Amy Tan’s love of Yorkies took her into the world of show dogs. Elizabeth Strout and her husband had his dog’s name engraved inside their wedding bands.

    Ann Leary discovered her brilliant dog was half Australian cattle dog who needed lots of stimulation and play. Peter Yoon’s first dog was “an animal that allowed me to explore and navigate all the landscapes outside the small tidy box I had created around myself.”

    Hoffman notes these essays are about loss, family, new relationships and hardships, but also about love. Dog lovers, this book is for you.

    Thanks to Scribner for a free book through NetGalley.

    The Best Dog in the World: Essays on Love
    by Alice Hoffman
    Scribner
    Pub Date March 10, 2026
    ISBN 9781668209028

    from the publisher

    Fourteen beloved authors celebrate the life-changing bond with their canine companions in this heartwarming essay collection edited by New York Times bestselling author and lifelong dog lover Alice Hoffman.

    Anyone who has ever been fortunate enough to share their life with a dog knows the experience is both profound and transformative. Here, in this charming collection of essays, fifteen celebrated authors share unforgettable tales of the dogs who left their pawprints on their hearts.

    With contributions from Isabel Allende, Chris Bohjalian, Bonnie Garmus, Roxane Gay, Emily Henry, Ann Leary, Tova Mirvis, Jodi Picoult, Elizabeth Strout, Amy Tan, Adriana Trigiani, Nick Trout, Paul Yoon, and Laura Zigman, The Best Dog in the World captures the full range of the canine-human connection, from the joy of welcoming a new puppy to the heartache of saying goodbye to a beloved friend.

    A love letter to the loyal companions who enrich our lives and teach us about empathy, joy, and unconditional love, this anthology is the perfect gift for dog lovers everywhere, offering a blend of laughter, tears, and inspiration that will resonate with anyone who has been fur-ever touched by the love of a dog.

  • Apple & Palm by Patricia Henley

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    Welcome to Whistle Pig, Maryland! The stories in Apple & Palm reveal a the town through vivid and complex characters.

    Jill manages an apple orchard and takes in orphaned girls, giving them a safe home after their parents’ tragic deaths. Later, she takes care of her niece Harper after a horrendous car accident. The Tansy Art Dispensary houses women artists, and Jill’s Papa lives there after he takes up with Adele, who Jill knew from school.

    Roxy also lives at the Tansy. Born in 1915 in New South Wales, she had a career as a photographer and was in the army service during the war. Her son Norman, a painter, has an affair with Harper. Lulu is close to Roxy.

    These and other characters struggle with love, infidelity, infertility, and unhappy marriages. Resilient, they start new, independent, lives and learn to thrive after tragedy. They take care of each other.

    These rich stories feel torn from real life.

    Henley was a finalist for the National Book Award and The New Yorker Fiction Prize.

    Thanks to Caitlin Hamilton Marketing and the publisher for a free book.

    Apple & Palm
    by Patricia Henley
    Cornerstone Press
    Pub Date March 10, 2026
    ISBN:9781968148218 (ISBN10: 1968148213)

    from the publisher

    In Apple & Palm, a linked story collection set in and around the town of Whistle Pig in the Western Maryland mountains, a web of characters navigate unexpected pitfalls, relationships, and aging.

    • Fragile, elderly Roxy now lives in a studio behind Tansy, the women’s arts co-op, instead of with the other women. She wants Lulu nearby. Lulu is her philandering grandson’s wife, a free spirited mother who keeps Roxy connected, alive.
    • Jill is in her sixties. She’s resilient, a little fierce, and rescues others—lets them find peace working in her apple orchard or respite on her sprawling property, which gives her a love and connection she prizes far more than any romance.
    • And then there’s Maddy, who loves books but has to read on the sly. She came up poor and married young, and her unreliable and violent husband doesn’t trust books. Or her.

    Exploring faded dreams, newly found independence, memory, desire, and more, the women in Henley’s stories clarify their identities and grasp their own narratives, in a world where men are rarely soulmates but share the reckoning of change. Sentence by sentence, Patricia Henley demonstrates in Apple & Palm why she is a master of the short story craft.

  • The Distance of a Shout: Selected Poems by Michael Ondaatje

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    I was captured from the first poem which describes looking at old family photographs on slides and the memories of the people captured in them. “These are the fragments I have of them,” Ondaatje writes. “These are their fragments, all I remember, wanting more knowledge of them.” Loving old photographs myself, what he captures in these lines gave me chills.

    There is a poem remembering the moving of an outhouse, another about an auction. He writes about his jazz and lovers, family members and friends. Memories of his childhood in Sri Lanka, his time in Ontario. These poems alone are richly rewarding. But several others hit me personally.

    In the long poem Tin Roof, written in Hawaii, he addresses Rilke and his Duino Elegies, then referencing the Letters to a Young Poet he notes that for him “this solitude brings no wisdom.” He ends, “I wanted poetry to be walnuts/in their green cases/but now it is the sea/and we let it drown us,/and we fly to it released/by giant catapults/of pain loneliness deceit and vanity.”

    Later, I am stunned to recognize a poem referential to one of my favorite poems, The Exile’s Letter by Rihaku, translated by Ezra Pound. I felt something spark while reading The River Neighbor, but Pacific Letter was obvious from the first line, “Now I remember….” and continues at “All this comes to an end.”

    I miss your company.
    Things we clung to
    remain on the horizon
    so be become the loon
    on his journey
    to confused depth and privacy.

    At such times–no talking
    no concludsions in the heart.

    I buy postage
    seal this

    and send it a thousand miles, thinking.

    from Pacific Letter by Michael Ondaatje

    I love this.

    These are poems to return to over and over, richer with every reading.

    Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

    The Distance of a Shout: Selected Poems
    by Michael Ondaatje
    Knopf
    Pub Date February 24, 2026
    ISBN: 9780593805015 (ISBN10: 0593805011)

    from the publisher

    An astonishing, one-of-a-kind collection showcasing fifty years of poetry by one of our most celebrated and cherished authors

    The poetry of Michael Ondaatje begins in distant landscapes, myths from childhood, fleeting interactions with loved ones, and characters from history itself. In poems that are spare as often as they are fable-like—as tender as they are heart-wrenching—the poet navigates the past, looks toward the future, and unearths inevitable truths about the world.

    Assembling Michael Ondaatje’s finest poems in one brilliant volume, The Distance of a Shout chronicles the poet’s journey—moving book to book, moment to moment, border to border—and leads the reader through the threshold of discovery itself. The Distance of a Shout is a profound and gorgeous collection by an indispensable poet of our time, and proof of why miraculous poetry endures.