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Come on in and join the knitting circle - it might just save your
life... Spinning yarns, weaving tales, mending lives... Every
Wednesday a group of women gathers at Alice's Sit and Knit. Little
do they know that they will learn so much more than patterns...
Grieving Maryneeds to fill the empty days after the death of her
only child. Glamorous Scarletis the life and soul of any party. But
beneath her trademark red hair and beaming smile lurks heartache.
Sculptor Luluseems too cool to live in the suburbs. Why has she
fled New York's bright lights? Model housewife Bethnever has a hair
out of place. But her perfect world is about to fall apart....
Irish-born Ellenwears the weight of the world on her shoulders but
not her heart on her sleeve. What is she hiding? As the weeks go
by, under mysterious Alice's watchful eye, an unlikely friendship
forms. Secrets are revealed and pacts made. Then tragedy strikes,
and each woman must learn to face her own past in order to move
on... This heartbreaking and uplifting novel is the perfect book
club read, for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and The
Keeper of Lost Things Praise for Ann Hood 'A heartbreaker' Vanity
Fair 'An engrossing storyteller ... [This book] works its magic.'
Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Secret Life of Bees 'What a gift for
Ann Hood, who suffered a loss nearly identical to Mary Baxter's, to
have made of her grief.' Newsday 'Memorably stirring and
authentic.' Los Angeles Times Book Review 'Ann Hood writes with the
ease of a born storyteller.' Chicago Tribune 'Just like a woolly
jumper, this book is cosy and perfect for long winter nights! ...
truly heartwarming.' Closer
In 1978, in the tailwind of the golden age of air travel, flight
attendants were the epitome of glamour and sophistication. Fresh
out of college and hungry to experience the world—and maybe, one
day, write about it—Ann Hood joined their ranks. After a
gruelling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech
Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft,
deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen and stay
calm no matter what the situation. In the air, Hood found both the
adventure she’d dreamt of and the unexpected realities of life on
the job. She carved chateaubriand in the first-class cabin and
dined in front of the pyramids in Cairo, fended off passengers’
advances and found romance on layovers in London and Lisbon, and
walked more than a million miles in high heels. She flew through
the start of deregulation, an oil crisis, massive furloughs and a
labour strike. As the airline industry changed around her, Hood
began to write—even drafting snatches of her first novel from the
jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots
in sexist standards. Packed with funny, moving and shocking stories
of life as a flight attendant, Fly Girl captures the nostalgia and
magic of air travel at its height, and the thrill that remains with
every take-off.
On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an
uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of
Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a
loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she
may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary
writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San
Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead,
Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins
to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The
surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the
life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Part
literary mystery and part love story, The Obituary Writer examines
expectations of marriage and love, the roles of wives and mothers,
and the emotions of grief, regret, and hope.
In Knitting Pearls, two-dozen writers write about the
transformative and healing powers of knitting. Jodi Picoult
remembers her grandmother and how through knitting she felt that
everlasting love. Lily King remembers the year her family lived in
Italy and a knitted hat that helped her daughter adjust to her new
home. Laura Lippman explores how converting to Judaism changed not
only Christmas but also her mother's gift of a knitted stocking.
And Bill Roorbach remembers his first year at college when knitting
soothed his broken heart and helped him fall in love again. Other
contributors include Steve Almond, Jane Hamilton, Ann Leary, Nick
Flynn, Lee Woodruff and knitting rock stars Jared Flood of Brooklyn
Tweed and the Yarn Whisperer, Clara Parks.
The impressive collection of writers here have contributed essays
that celebrate knitting and knitters. They share their knitting
triumphs and disasters as well as their life triumphs and
disasters. . . . These essays will break your heart. They will have
you laughing out loud. Ann Hood, from the introduction
Why does knitting occupy a place in the hearts of so many
writers? What s so magical and transformative about yarn and
needles? How does knitting help us get through life-changing events
and inspire joy? In Knitting Yarns, twenty-seven writers tell
stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped them to
grow. Barbara Kingsolver describes sheering a sheep for yarn.
Elizabeth Berg writes about her frustration at failing to knit. Ann
Patchett traces her life through her knitting, writing about the
scarf that knits together the women she s loved and lost. Knitting
a Christmas gift for his blind aunt helped Andre Dubus III knit an
understanding with his girlfriend. Kaylie Jones finds the woman who
used knitting to help raise her in France and heals old wounds. Sue
Grafton writes about her passion for knitting. Also included are
five original knitting patterns created by Helen Bingham.
Poignant, funny, and moving, Knitting Yarns is sure to delight
knitting enthusiasts and lovers of literature alike."
From childhood to singledom, raising a family, divorce and marriage
to Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a
good meal. Growing up, she tasted love in her grandmother's tomato
sauce and dreamed of her mother's Fancy Lady Sandwiches. Hood
cooked roast pork to warm her first apartment, found hope in her
daughter's omelette and fell in love-with her husband and his
chicken stock. Hood tracks her lifelong journey in the kitchen with
twenty-seven essays, each accompanied by a recipe (or a few). In
"Carbonara Quest", searching for the perfect spaghetti helped her
cope with lonely nights as a flight attendant. In the award-winning
"The Golden Silver Palate", she recounts the history of her
fail-safe dinner party recipe for Chicken Marbella and how it
failed her. Hood's simple, comforting recipes include meatballs,
Beef Stew, Fried Chicken, grilled cheese and a peach pie.
"In China there is a belief that people who are destined to be
together are connected by an invisible red thread. Who is at the
end of your red thread?" After losing her infant daughter in a
freak accident, Maya Lange opens The Red Thread, an adoption agency
that specializes in placing baby girls from China with American
families. Maya finds some comfort in her work, until a group of six
couples share their personal stories of their desire for a child.
Their painful and courageous journey toward adoption forces her to
confront the lost daughter of her past. Brilliantly braiding
together the stories of Chinese birth mothers who give up their
daughters, Ann Hood writes a moving and beautifully told novel of
fate and the red thread that binds these characters' lives.
Heartrending and wise, The Red Thread is a stirring portrait of
unforgettable love and yearning for a baby.
In her admired works of fiction, Ann Hood explores the
transformative power of literature. Now, with warmth and honesty,
Hood reveals the personal story behind these works of fiction.
Growing up in a household that didn't foster the love of
literature, Hood channelled her imagination and curiosity by
devouring The Bell Jar, Marjorie Morningstar, The Harrad Experiment
and other works. These titles introduced her to topics that could
not be discussed at home: desire, fear, sexuality and madness.
Later, Johnny Got His Gun and The Grapes of Wrath influenced her
political thinking and Dr. Zhivago and Les Miserables stoked her
ambition to travel the world. With characteristic insight and
charm, Hood showcases the ways in which books gave her life and can
transform-even save-our own.
In Knitting Pearls, two-dozen writers write about the
transformative and healing powers of knitting. Jodi Picoult
remembers her grandmother and how through knitting she felt that
everlasting love. Lily King remembers the year her family lived in
Italy and a knitted hat that helped her daughter adjust to her new
home. Laura Lippman explores how converting to Judaism changed not
only Christmas but also her mother's gift of a knitted stocking.
And Bill Roorbach remembers his first year at college when knitting
soothed his broken heart and helped him fall in love again. Other
contributors include Steve Almond, Jane Hamilton, Ann Leary, Nick
Flynn, Lee Woodruff and knitting rock stars Jared Flood of Brooklyn
Tweed and the Yarn Whisperer, Clara Parks.
From childhood to singledom, raising a family, divorce and marriage
to Michael Ruhlman, Ann Hood has long appreciated the power of a
good meal. Growing up, she tasted love in her grandmother's tomato
sauce and dreamed of her mother's Fancy Lady Sandwiches. Hood
cooked roast pork to warm her first apartment, found hope in her
daughter's omelette and fell in love-with her husband and his
chicken stock. Hood tracks her lifelong journey in the kitchen with
twenty-seven essays, each accompanied by a recipe (or a few). In
"Carbonara Quest", searching for the perfect spaghetti helped her
cope with lonely nights as a flight attendant. In the award-winning
"The Golden Silver Palate", she recounts the history of her
fail-safe dinner party recipe for Chicken Marbella and how it
failed her. Hood's simple, comforting recipes include meatballs,
Beef Stew, Fried Chicken, grilled cheese and a peach pie.
Ava's twenty-five-year marriage has fallen apart, and her two grown
children are pursuing their own lives outside of the country. Ava
joins a book group, not only for her love of reading but also out
of sheer desperation for companionship. The group's goal throughout
the year is for each member to present the book that matters most
to them. Ava rediscovers a mysterious book from her childhood-one
that helped her through the traumas of the untimely deaths of her
sister and mother. Alternating with Ava's story is that of her
troubled daughter Maggie, who, living in Paris, descends into a
destructive relationship with an older man. Ava's mission to find
that book and its enigmatic author takes her on a quest that
unravels the secrets of her past and offers her and Maggie the
chance to remake their lives.
After the sudden loss of her only child, Mary Baxter joins a
knitting circle in Providence, Rhode Island, as a way to fill the
empty hours and lonely days. The women welcome her, each teaching
Mary a new knitting technique and, as they do, revealing their own
personal stories of loss, love, and hope. Eventually Mary is able
to tell her own story of grief and in so doing reclaims her love
for her husband, faces the hard truths about her relationship with
her mother, and finds the spark of life again.
In 1978, in the tailwind of the golden age of air travel, flight
attendants were the epitome of glamor and sophistication. Fresh out
of college and hungry to experience the world-and maybe, one day,
write about it-Ann Hood joined their ranks. After a grueling job
search, Hood survived TWA's rigorous Breech Training Academy and
learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix
proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what
the situation. In the air, Hood found both the adventure she'd
dreamt of and the unexpected realities of life on the job. She
carved chateaubriand in the first-class cabin and dined in front of
the pyramids in Cairo, fended off passengers' advances and found
romance on layovers in London and Lisbon, and walked more than a
million miles in high heels. She flew through the start of
deregulation, an oil crisis, massive furloughs, and a labor strike.
As the airline industry changed around her, Hood began to
write-even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat.
She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist
standards. Packed with funny, moving, and shocking stories of life
as a flight attendant, Fly Girl captures the nostalgia and magic of
air travel at its height, and the thrill that remains with every
takeoff.
In her admired works of fiction, Ann Hood explores the
transformative power of literature. Now, with warmth and honesty,
Hood reveals the personal story behind these works of fiction.
Growing up in a household that didn't foster the love of
literature, Hood channelled her imagination and curiosity by
devouring The Bell Jar, Marjorie Morningstar, The Harrad Experiment
and other works. These titles introduced her to topics that could
not be discussed at home: desire, fear, sexuality and madness.
Later, Johnny Got His Gun and The Grapes of Wrath influenced her
political thinking and Dr. Zhivago and Les Miserables stoked her
ambition to travel the world. With characteristic insight and
charm, Hood showcases the ways in which books gave her life and can
transform-even save-our own.
The impressive collection of writers here have contributed essays
that celebrate knitting and knitters. They share their knitting
triumphs and disasters as well as their life triumphs and
disasters. . . . These essays will break your heart. They will have
you laughing out loud. Ann Hood, from the introduction
Why does knitting occupy a place in the hearts of so many
writers? What s so magical and transformative about yarn and
needles? How does knitting help us get through life-changing events
and inspire joy? In Knitting Yarns, twenty-seven writers tell
stories about how knitting healed, challenged, or helped them to
grow. Barbara Kingsolver describes sheering a sheep for yarn.
Elizabeth Berg writes about her frustration at failing to knit. Ann
Patchett traces her life through her knitting, writing about the
scarf that knits together the women she s loved and lost. Knitting
a Christmas gift for his blind aunt helped Andre Dubus III knit an
understanding with his girlfriend. Kaylie Jones finds the woman who
used knitting to help raise her in France and heals old wounds. Sue
Grafton writes about her passion for knitting. Also included are
five original knitting patterns created by Helen Bingham.
Poignant, funny, and moving, Knitting Yarns is sure to delight
knitting enthusiasts and lovers of literature alike."
On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, an
uncompromising young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of
Jackie O, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a
loveless marriage or follow the man she loves and whose baby she
may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary
writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San
Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead,
Vivien not only helps others cope with their grief but also begins
to understand the devastation of her own terrible loss. The
surprising connection between Claire and Vivien will change the
life of one of them in unexpected and extraordinary ways. Part
literary mystery and part love story, The Obituary Writer examines
expectations of marriage and love, the roles of wives and mothers,
and the emotions of grief, regret, and hope.
In 1969, as Peter, Paul and Mary croon on the radio and poster
paints splash the latest antiwar slogans, three young friends find
love. Suzanne, a poet, lives in a Maine beach house awaiting the
birth of a child she will call Sparrow. Claudia, who weds a farmer
during college, plans to raise three strong sons. Elizabeth and her
husband marry, organize protests, and try to rear two children with
their hippie values. By 1985, things have changed: Suzanne, now
with an MBA, calls Sparrow "Susan." Claudia spirals backward into
her sixties world and madness. And Elizabeth, fatally ill, watches
despairingly as her children yearn for a split-level house and a
gleaming station wagon. ?Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine? is Ann
Hood's stunning debut novel about the choices we make when we are
young, and the changes brought about by the passing of time."
Looking at her characters as if through a pair of binoculars, Ann
Hood captures the extraordinary in the ordinary. A pregnant woman
left by her husband cooks obsessively to cope with her loss, but
never tastes a morsel. In an attempt to stay sober, a young
alcoholic seduces her priest and embarks on a tour of caverns with
him. An adolescent girl picks up bird-watching as a hobby and, in
her newfound habit of observing others, discovers a budding romance
between her mother and her neighbor. These stories, many published
in "The Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Story," and "The Colorado
Review," are full of characters seeking an escape from their lives
while uncovering small moments of understanding that often have
huge implications and consequences. They discover that they can
only find peace once they stop searching for a way out. Through
diverse voices and lively storytelling, Hood creates authentic,
personal, secret worlds full of eccentric detail.
In 2002, Ann Hood's five-year-old daughter Grace died suddenly from
a virulent form of strep throat. Stunned and devastated, the family
searched for comfort in a time when none seemed possible. Hood-an
accomplished novelist-was unable to read or write. She could only
reflect on her lost daughter-"the way she looked splashing in the
bathtub ... the way we sang 'Eight Days a Week.'" One day, a friend
suggested she learn to knit. Knitting soothed her and gave her
something to do. Eventually, she began to read and write again. A
semblance of normalcy returned, but grief, in ever new and
different forms, still held the family. What they could not know
was that comfort would come, and in surprising ways. Hood traces
her descent into grief and reveals how she found comfort and hope
again-a journey to recovery that culminates with a newly adopted
daughter.
College friends Lucy and Katherine reunite as adults—and build a
new friendship as changed women Katherine shows up at Lucy’s
Manhattan doorstep having run away from the marriage altar. Lucy
isn’t thrilled to see her former sorority sister—her own life
as a children’s book illustrator is complicated enough,
especially as she may be falling out of love with her boyfriend.
Along with Lucy’s oddball best friend, Julia, the women tackle
the complicated challenge of being young, lost, and in search of
life in New York City. Something Blue is a heartfelt but
never sentimental modern classic, capturing three women on the
verge of the future, still figuring out the past, and trying to
solve the present all at once. A novel that addresses friendship,
ambition, and love head on, Something Blue and its
three heroines head in surprising directions in their search for
meaning.
"In China there is a belief that people who are destined to be
together are connected by an invisible red thread. Who is at the
end of your red thread?" After losing her infant daughter in a
freak accident, Maya Lange opens The Red Thread, an adoption agency
that specializes in placing baby girls from China with American
families. Maya finds some comfort in her work, until a group of six
couples share their personal stories of their desire for a child.
Their painful and courageous journey toward adoption forces her to
confront the lost daughter of her past. Brilliantly braiding
together the stories of Chinese birth mothers who give up their
daughters, Ann Hood writes a moving and beautifully told novel of
fate and the red thread that binds these characters' lives.
Heartrending and wise, The Red Thread is a stirring portrait of
unforgettable love and yearning for a baby.
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