Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting

By a bunch of people, edited by Ann Hood.

Exactly what it says on the tin, including patterns. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of the patterns, which annoys me greatly because how am I supposed to know if I want to make the thing without the visual? Just saying, publisher.

Memorable essays in this one:

• "looped yarn" by Martha Franke, about losing her best friend to a cult(!) and knitting her way through that situation.
• "knitting in kathmandu" by Jessi Hempel: Jessi is an out-and-proud lesbian knitter who, to her own surprise, finds herself attracted to a dude knitter she meets while traveling and it spins her head right round. I desperately want to spoil the ending of this, but I won't....darn it. But when I got to the last few pages, I was all "holy crap!" The world works in mysterious ways. 
• "judite" by Kaylie Jones, about her long time nanny and their relationship over the years. Another one where the ending made me go "awwww!"
• "i bought this pattern book last spring" by Elinor Lipman is a  delightful poem about unfinished projects. 
• "the supernatural power of knitting" by Alison Lurie, a combination article on the history of knitting and fictional knitters.

Overall, three and a half stars.