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are they all gone?

is it safe to come back? do you think they've all gone away?

the knitting song

Book Review: Mother-Daugther Knits by Sally Melville

Mother-Daughter Knits: 30 Designs to Flatter and Fit by Sally Melville

[A copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review].

Purchase this book from Amazon.com (or not)

Hey! A book review that actually has something to do with knitting!

This book is a joint project of Sally Melville and her daughter, Caddy Melville Ledbetter.  The title captures the two themes of the book.  First, it is written with both older (mother) and younger (daughter) knitters in mind.  However, I think focus on the mother-daughter aspect overshadows the other theme, which for me is one of the better features of this book--a detailed discussion of the fit and style of knitted garments. Chapter One, Knit to Flatter & Fit, provides a nice basic introduction to the principles of sweater styling and addresses the mystery of the ages: Why do we knit sweaters we never wear? This topic has probably been covered in other knitting books, maybe in other books that I own, but I haven't read all the knitting books that I own any more than I have knit all the yarn that I own.  [Any recommendations for other books that go into these topics in more detail?]

Thirty patterns are presented with the design duty is more or less equally shared between Sally and Caddy. The patterns come in a range of difficulty with most in the middle range and a handful each of beginner and experienced designs. There are pattens for small accessories like headbands, cuffs, and spats/legwarmers (!), as well as for some more substantial garments like sweaters, a coat, and even a couple of skirts. Not all the designs are hits for me (spats?), but there are some definite 'yeses' in the bunch including a shirt-style cardigan and a shaped hoodie.

Keeping with the inter-generational theme, there is a mixture of younger and more mature models (including Sally and Caddy), which was nice to see. However, all these models (with the exception of Sally and Caddy) still represented only one body type. It would have been helpful, in a book addressing fit, to see at least a couple of the garments reworked for a few different body shapes in order to illustrate the principles discussed in Chapter One.

At the back of the book there is a section of techniques and abbreviations that could have benefited from a couple figures. There are also charts for CYCA yarn weights, standard size, and needle (US and mm) to hook size comparison--all nice to have in one place. 

I like this book for the range of pattern difficulty and variety of designs; knitters of varying skill and experience could all find something to like here. What I like even more is the attention to the topic of fit and the friendly and accessible discussion about making changes to knitting patterns so that we will wear the sweaters we have created.  More, more!

I will be happy when...

I will be happy, when?

round one: an unfinished dew breaker

An Unfinished Season: A Novel by Ward Just

When I first read the title, I thought the season unfinished would refer to some sport or other; my bet was on basketball. Bad guess. Let's call it an unfinished novel instead. Once again, true to form for the modern novel, a strong start peters out into a weak, pointless finish. Why can't authors bring their A game to the end or just quit while they are ahead.

The Dew Breaker By Edwidge Danticat

Points of interest: Edwidge Danticat is female and was born in Haiti. This book is actually a collection of stories about, or told by, a group of semi-related characters including a former Hatian torturer--the dew breaker of the title. I would have preferred if one or two of the stories had been more fleshed out and some of the more tangential stories left for greater exploration elsewhere.

Neither of these books was particularly good or bad.  Neither would be likely to make it out of the next round anyway, so I'll flip a coin.

Winner: An Unfished Season

round one: the cloud school

Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell

This book has a unique and maddening structure: there are six loosely related stories representing six genres successively wrapped within one another so that for the first half of the book you are starting and leaving the beginnings of things. After reading the central story at one go, you are back a the end of story five, then four, and so on. This structure did not endear this book to me; I resented constantly being interrupted. Moreover, it didn't help my experience as a reader that the book was in such high demand from the library that I could never renew it, but had to keep returning it and then waiting sometimes several weeks to be able to check it out again. That just made the bifurcated stories feel even more disconnected. 

This is the book that won the 2005 tournament. Some people really liked it. I would not discourage you from giving it a chance, but I'm not making any promises.

The Finishing School by Muriel Spark

This is actually more of a long short story or a novelette than a novel. Unlike the protracted ordeal of Cloud Atlas, I read this book comfortably in an afternoon. It's a lark; but don't pay much, if anything, to read it--it will be done all too quickly.  Perhaps it should packaged in a volume together with Spark's better known work of teachers and students, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Annoyance almost made The Finishing School the winner, but after cooling off, I reconsidered.

Winner: Cloud Atlas

round one: heir to the glimmering human capital

Heir to the Glimmering World : A Novel by Cynthia Ozick

A young woman becomes a factotum for a refugee German Jewish scholar and his family. Many quirky types are introduced.

My memory of this book is fading. I guess it didn't make much on an impression on me. 

Human Capital: A Novel by Stephen Amidon

I didn't finish this book; I got bored and skipped to the last chapter. Teenaged delinquents (hot and cold varieties), middle-aged suburban housewives, desperate investment types (the future foretold?), and real estate speculation.

Even though I can barely remember HttGW, I do remember finishing the book.

Winner:Heir to the Glimmering World

round one: jonathan strange & the rope eater

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke

I would describe this book as Harry Potter for adults, except that Harry Potter isn't not for adults, so that doesn't quite capture it. This is also a book about magic, but not boy wizards, rather, gentleman magicians.

I enjoyed this book almost completely. It's long--more than a thousand pages as a paperback--but Clarke was able to keep the story moving and changing in a way that compelled me and I finished it rather quickly. Also, unlike my common complaint about modern fiction, there was a satisfying, if not completely pat, conclusion to the whole enterprise.

The Rope Eater by Ben Jones

A Union soldier deserts and ends up on an exploration ship bound for the arctic. What do the explorers seek? What will they find? Entertaining, if a bit flaky near the end.

I read this book during the summer when arctic ice floes and frost-bitten digits were almost unimaginable. Don't read this book in the winter.

Up against three of the previous competitors (maybe even The Plot Against America), The Rope Eater would have been victorious. Too bad; I was completely captivated by JS & Mr. N.

Winner: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

silly

mostly not blogging about my knitting because I've lost confidence in my photography. knitting every day.

round one: the news from the inner circle

The News from Paraguay: A Novel by Lily Tuck

This book starts off well enough as the story of European woman involved with a Paraguayan general, but devolves into nonstop debauchery, pestilence, and gruesome death. On the upside, during the time I was reading this book, I attended a classical guitar recital. Some of the selections were by the Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios, which I enjoyed very much and paid closer attention to as a result of the Paraguay connection. Look into Barrios; pass on this novel.

The Inner Circle by T.C. Boyle

Before reading this novel--a fictionalized account of the research conducted by Alfred Kinsey--my entire awareness of Kinsey came from the lyrics of the Cole Porter tune Too Darn Hot.

 

According to the Kinsey report
ev'ry average man you know
much prefers to play his favorite sport
when the temperature is low

After reading this novel and watching a PBS special and the Kinsey biopic starring Liam Neeson, I probably know more than I want to about the ground-breaking researcher and his work.

 

As you may imagine there is copius coupling depicted. The most of the names and some of the details have been changed. [This is why I did the additional research--to see how much things were changed].

 

Sex, pestilence, and death versus sex, sex, and sex.

Winner: The Inner Circle