Helpful Score: 7
This is no Friday Night Knitting Club. Thankfully the book is short and a quick read. It is just odd and the characters are not loveable. In terms of "rooting" for the characters, I found myself "rooting" for the book to end.
Helpful Score: 4
A lovely story with quirky characters. Great for a rainy day read. There is some knitting terminology throughout the story, but even non-knitters should find this story quite enjoyable. So beautifully written that it's difficult to believe this is Barlett's first book.
Helpful Score: 2
Knitters and non-knitters alike will enjoy this look into the lives of women helping each other. Bartlett explores the spiritual and emotional lives of the characters using knitting as a metaphor for the problems and joys we all face in life.
Helpful Score: 2
This is a great novel of how knitting can be a healing process.
Helpful Score: 1
very "Real" book. grabs you when you don't realize it. can easily relate to the characters.
Helpful Score: 1
The story is a bit unusual but has a great ending.
Entertaining read. A good effort by Anne. Any knitter/crafter will appreciate the variety of projects worked by one of the main characters. I would recommend. Light reading, but also crafted well.
This book was a sweet, easy-read kind of book. The story is set in Australia and tells the tale of two ladies who meet quite by chance and the relationship that develops from there. I enjoyed the simple and direct style of the story and the author's ability to make me "see" the characters and their personalities.
Delightful story about knitting, and about how very different people can become friends. Sandra is an uptight professor who must always be in control. By unusual circumstance, she meets Martha, who is a talented knitter. Although their lives are so very different, they become friends and work on a knitting exhibit.
No spoilers, but all is not going smoothly and Martha unravels. Sandra learns to let go of some control and learns a lot about herself from her quirky friend.
An overall feel-good book, easy reading. I hope Ms. Bartlett treats us to more of her enjoyable storytelling.
No spoilers, but all is not going smoothly and Martha unravels. Sandra learns to let go of some control and learns a lot about herself from her quirky friend.
An overall feel-good book, easy reading. I hope Ms. Bartlett treats us to more of her enjoyable storytelling.
Quirky but enjoyable book about two women in Australia, both psychically damaged, who connect through knitting.
Slow to start, but in depth telling of the relationship between very different women.
I absolutely love this book, and raced through it in two sittings.
Bartlett has created a complex story that touches on grief, obsession, madness, mirrored in the physical art of creation.
Sandra Fildes is a brittle, controlling, still-grieving widow whose chance encounter with the eccentric, generous Martha McKenzie grows into an odd friendship centered around Sandra's attempt to launch a multi-media display of knitted garments of the 19th century.
Yes, there's knitting content here, and if you're a knitter, you'll recognize many of Martha's mindsets and frustrations. But you don't need to have a clue about the craft to recognize the way Bartlett uses it as a metaphor.
Hugely satisfying, and I'm going to take a soapbox to my next F2F book club meeting and wave this book around until the members agree to read it for discussion.
Bartlett has created a complex story that touches on grief, obsession, madness, mirrored in the physical art of creation.
Sandra Fildes is a brittle, controlling, still-grieving widow whose chance encounter with the eccentric, generous Martha McKenzie grows into an odd friendship centered around Sandra's attempt to launch a multi-media display of knitted garments of the 19th century.
Yes, there's knitting content here, and if you're a knitter, you'll recognize many of Martha's mindsets and frustrations. But you don't need to have a clue about the craft to recognize the way Bartlett uses it as a metaphor.
Hugely satisfying, and I'm going to take a soapbox to my next F2F book club meeting and wave this book around until the members agree to read it for discussion.
An enjoyable read with an unexpected ending.
It was an ok story, a light read with messages of life imbedded in it. The people transform their life and feelings all from being bound together by knitting. It's a nice little read.
While Sandra - a rigidly focused academic - struggles to navigate her way through life without her husband Jack, whom she recently lost to cancer, she is absolutely certain that nothing will ever be the same again. She had once thought that the well-ordered life that she had lived with her husband would just continue along in the same way it had since his passing. However, the intervening months have tested that belief. In the ten months since his death, Sandra has felt like she is wrapped in a layer of ice-cold glass - numbed by her grief, Sandra is certain that she will never feel warm again.
A chance meeting with a woman who could possibly be Sandra's polar opposite leads to a very unlikely friendship between them. Sandra meets Martha McKenzie after both women become Good Samaritans to someone suffering from a medical crisis in the street. Martha is an extraordinarily gifted knitter with her own secret store of grief. She spends her days knitting an astonishing variety of projects - each one of which is an elaborate creation - imbued with an incredible wealth of personal meaning.
While Sandra's own grief has constrained her spirit, Martha appears to wear hers very lightly. However, neither woman realizes just how much their differences will ultimately spark their own unique friendship. It is actually a shared fascination with knitting that ultimately draws these two very different women together.
Sandra is actually fascinated by all forms of needle and textile-craft, although her true talent for the domestic arts lies in her study of them. As a matter of fact, Sandra whole-heartedly believes that it is her avid interest in all types of domestic handiwork which has kept her fully grounded in reality for the past ten months. So, as the two women subsequently open up their lives to each other, their collaboration on an exhibition of 'Retro and Contemporary Knitting and Women's Handiwork' sets in motion a series of events that will help to heal them both in miraculous ways.
I was initially intrigued by the story because I have always enjoyed knitting and was curious to see how the story would evolve. To be perfectly honest, I found the story to be slightly anticlimactic although still very enjoyable. I liked so many of the characters, and found the plot well-developed yet easily paced. In my opinion, this was a delightful debut novel and I would definitely give it an A!
A chance meeting with a woman who could possibly be Sandra's polar opposite leads to a very unlikely friendship between them. Sandra meets Martha McKenzie after both women become Good Samaritans to someone suffering from a medical crisis in the street. Martha is an extraordinarily gifted knitter with her own secret store of grief. She spends her days knitting an astonishing variety of projects - each one of which is an elaborate creation - imbued with an incredible wealth of personal meaning.
While Sandra's own grief has constrained her spirit, Martha appears to wear hers very lightly. However, neither woman realizes just how much their differences will ultimately spark their own unique friendship. It is actually a shared fascination with knitting that ultimately draws these two very different women together.
Sandra is actually fascinated by all forms of needle and textile-craft, although her true talent for the domestic arts lies in her study of them. As a matter of fact, Sandra whole-heartedly believes that it is her avid interest in all types of domestic handiwork which has kept her fully grounded in reality for the past ten months. So, as the two women subsequently open up their lives to each other, their collaboration on an exhibition of 'Retro and Contemporary Knitting and Women's Handiwork' sets in motion a series of events that will help to heal them both in miraculous ways.
I was initially intrigued by the story because I have always enjoyed knitting and was curious to see how the story would evolve. To be perfectly honest, I found the story to be slightly anticlimactic although still very enjoyable. I liked so many of the characters, and found the plot well-developed yet easily paced. In my opinion, this was a delightful debut novel and I would definitely give it an A!
From the back cover:
"In Anne Bartlett's engagin novel, a chance meeting spartks a friendship betwewene two very different women who share a fascination with knitting. Sandra, a rigig academic, struggles to navigate the world without her husband, whom she has recently lost to cancer. Martha--a self-taught textile artist with her own secret store of grief--spends her days knitting elaborate projects charged with personal meaning. As the two women collaborate on a new project, surprising events will help heal them both."
"In Anne Bartlett's engagin novel, a chance meeting spartks a friendship betwewene two very different women who share a fascination with knitting. Sandra, a rigig academic, struggles to navigate the world without her husband, whom she has recently lost to cancer. Martha--a self-taught textile artist with her own secret store of grief--spends her days knitting elaborate projects charged with personal meaning. As the two women collaborate on a new project, surprising events will help heal them both."
