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Sonderbooks Book Review of

Knitting Pearls

Writers Writing About Knitting

edited by Ann Hood


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Knitting Pearls

Writers Writing About Knitting

edited by Ann Hood

Review posted November 8, 2018.
W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2016. 260 pages.
Review written in 2017

This is a book of essays about knitting, and the essays are written by twenty-seven distinguished writers. Not all of the writers are knitters, but all of the writers do have something interesting to say about knitting. Maybe they had a relative who knitted for them. Maybe there's a particular knitted object that starts their musings.

I took a long time to read this book. But that's the beauty of essays - you can read one at a time and come away smiling. Or just musing about life.

Here's a paragraph from the introduction, with the editor telling us what to expect. (There are several more paragraphs, so this is just a taste.)

And speaking of swooning, here's what you have to look forward to when you read Knitting Pearls. Like me, some of the contributors knit their way through adversity. Caroline Leavitt's first husband asked her to make him a sweater with brontosauruses on it, but as she knit the marriage began to crumble. Lily King's daughter knit a hat during their year living in Italy, which eased her homesickness. Cynthia Chinelly knits to help her escape the worry she has for her son. Melissa Coleman hoped that knitting a sweater for everyone in her family would remove the curse of divorce. An on-again, off-again knitter, Robin Romm returned to it when her mother was dying, and now knits as she waits for a baby. Back at Ithaca College in the 1970s, Bill Roorbach joined the knitting club to get over his broken heart - and to meet girls.

If you love knitting, you're going to enjoy this book.