The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas

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The Love That Binds Us

If you’re looking for a book about the power of friendship, The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas is the book for you.  Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not set in the Middle East.  The story takes place in Kansas during the Great Depression and drought of the 1930s. A Persian pickle is a paisley, and the club is a quilting bee. The women of the Persian Pickle Club dress up and meet regularly to quilt and socialize. They love nothing more than trading fabric scraps and finding new patterns with names like Better Times, Nine-Patch, Wandering Foot, and Road to Californy.

When new comer, Rita, joins the group, they try to welcome her even though she doesn’t quite fit in. She’s a college girl who doesn’t know how to sew a stitch. She has a hankering for bourbon and a yearning to be a journalist.  She would prefer to read rather than sew, which is something Queenie just can’t understand.  The story is told by Queenie, a kind and sensible young farmwife who befriends Rita and helps her in her quest to become a journalist.

I loved this book from beginning to the very end. Through miscarriages, polio scares, problems with daughters, or even the discovery of one woman’s missing husband found buried in a field, the Pickles are there for each other. The book is a fast read.  You might zip through it, but Queenie and the Pickles will stay with you a long time.  

I intentionally left my copy of The Persian Pickle Club at a local laundromat as part of the “Book Crossing” program.  Book Crossing is a way to share books with strangers, another way to make someone smile.  You take a book you enjoyed reading and you pass it on in a public place, hoping someone will take it home and enjoy it too. Through bookcrossing.com you register a book, print a label with a unique ID number along with instructions on what the person should do once they find such a book.  You place it on the inside cover (or you can hand write it in a book) and “release” your book in “the wild.” Then you wait and check the website to see where it travels.

Happy reading!
Annette


Comments

Mutteld said…
What a fun review. It seem's that it is always the little silly things that count's and stay with us forever. The book sounds great. I also like the idea of read and release, who knows where the book might end up. Hope you find out where your book went.
March 8, 2013 at 1:40 PM
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