A blog about my life, knitting, and other stuff.

May 11, 2010

Sweater Quest

A customer loaned me her copy of Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously
by Adrienne Martini. I thought, "A book about knitting. What's not to love?" Well, sadly, a lot. My first moment of disappointment came on page 4 when Martini, while quoting Elizabeth Zimmermann for the first of many times, misspells her name. That bugged me. She also misspells Veronik Avery's name on the page facing the paragraph in which Martini derides Alice Starmore for misspelling Spuyten Duyvil. Oh, you've never heard of it? It's an area of the Bronx. I grew up 20 minutes from there and I can't spell it. I think Ms. Starmore could get a pass on that one.

The endless quoting bothered me too. A large portion of this book, a challenge to knit Alice Starmore's Mary Tudor in one year, relies on quoting other authors or figures of the contemporary knitting world. She goes to Nashville to visit Ann; She goes to New York to visit Kay; She heads to Toronto to meet Amy Singer and Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. It's more of a survey of other knitters than a memoir. In all I felt the story was not interesting and the writing was slapdash and in dire need of an editor. As a knitter and a reader I felt insulted. Don't publishers think we deserve any better than this?

14 comments:

--Deb said...

I agree with you. I gave this a kinder review, but really, was disappointed. I didn't hate it by any means, but can't see reading it again, either.

To be fair, though, it's possible her TYPESETTER didn't know the correct spelling for Veronik Avery. I saw Clara Parkes' name misspelled in a table of contents just the other day. Typos happen.

Lynn said...

I was disappointed that she spent so much time asking other people whether her sweater was a "real" Alice Starmore, rather than talking about the knitting of it. And I noticed the misspellings as well.

It did get me thinking about my own Sweater Quest. If you were to take on this type of project, what would your sweater be? Mine is Foolish Virgins by Kaffe Fassett. For which I have the original Rowan kit, carefully packed in mothproof wrapping, so no worrying about whether it's "real". It will probably go in my coffin with me, unknit.

Anonymous said...

I hope you write the publisher on this. I haven't yet read the book but now care little whether I ever do.
Lynn has a good idea for a knitters' poll. Not sure at this point what my quest would be; perhaps my fantasy rhapsody on Jade Starmore's "Katherine Howard". It's to be recolored in light blue-greens in a silk/wool blend and will look like a mermaid sweater (in my mind's eye, anyway).
-- Gretchen

DeeW said...

I read this book over the weekend and was disappointed as well. It really wasn't about her "year of knitting dangerously" as there was minimal reference to the knitter's progress on the sweater and challenges along the way, other than yarn acquisition. I think there was a lot of potential but ultimately the book missed the mark. Too much quoting about what others thought and after all of that, I thought the book should have at the very least ended with a Yes or No answer.

Barbara said...

Oh, thank you. I thought I was just being a crank, but there wasn't much meat in it. The thought that carried me through the book was, if she doesn't like and respect the designer, why was she knitting the sweater? And not one picture. Disappointing.

Dr. Steph said...

I've been warned. And I appreciate the truthful review.

Nora said...

Yep, me too. I read it all and I wanted to like it and stuck with it, but there was just something off about it. One thing that bothered me was she was trying too hard to bring non-knitters into the tent, and she spent a lot of time explaining things the insiders know. Really, if you didn't knit, would you pick up the book? Doubtful.

Paper Tiger said...

Some of its flaws might have been because this book is out of her publisher's comfort zone. (Other books they released this year... a book on the Allies in WWII, a parenting book, a book on JP Morgan and corporate greed, Valerie Bertinelli...) I doubt that she got the kind of guidance and editing that would have made the book work. (I mean, look at the cover. Is that the work of a publisher who knows the knitting audience?)

Oatmeal and Cinnamon said...

Hold up. That first comment blames the typesetter of a typo. The editor is in charge of anything having to do with the spelling, language, grammar. The typesetter uses what they're given and it would be very unlikely that they would create an editorial error, especially repeat spelling errors.

knittinbrit_in_wi said...

Thanks for the review, I think I'll skip that one. I did just read Casting off by Nicole Dickson. I liked it. I'm sure it's not the best piece of literature, but it was a pleasant read.

StephCat said...

I've been debating about doing a review. Checked it out from the library and I'm glad I didn't buy it.

Lots of name-dropping, and lots of what I'd consider inaccurate generalities (for example -- you don't *have* to do FI with both hands -- yes, it's an option, but certainly not the only one, though not, apparently, according to her).

Paper Tiger said...

Gotta disagree about the typesetter not being responsible for typos, or for the editor being solely responsible. The buck stops with the editor, but they don't necessarily introduce the errors. Typos are magic. They can come from the compositor, the designer, proofreading errors... Any time a human touches a book there's a chance to introduce an error.

Emma in France said...

That's disappointing, I enjoyed her first book, Hillbilly Gothic.

Theresa said...

I am a book who', and really love reading and I don't even mind dusting them (I know, it's scary) but I do have my standards. Being a Starmore groupie,I spent good money on this book and hated it. I couldn't give it away and finally dropped it at the library for their annual book sale. I can't think of a single thing in this book that would recommend it to any knitter.