A writer, professor, and mother with a penchant for “obsessively knitting,” Martini has spent plenty of time putting needles to yarn. In fact, she explains, knitting was central to her emergence from the postpartum depression she chronicled in 2006's Hillbilly Gothic: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood
. Several years and a second child later, she's looking for a new level of knitting challenge, not to mention fodder for this second memoir. Her trademark humor and honesty make for an engaging read (for example, she writes, “Both kids and craft have taught me how to deal with frustration so acute that I'd want to bite the head off a kitten”). Despite that, her grand knitting/writing project for 2008 was an Alice Starmore Fair Isle sweater, for its complexity of pattern, colors, and knitting technique. Martini casts on and explores the history of knitting, details visits and calls to fellow knitters near and far, and describes Starmore's determination to protect her brand and copyright. It's a lively, interesting blend of personal quest, knitting history and Starmore biography certain to appeal to knitters—and to readers who enjoy taking on (or reading about) a worthy personal challenge. (Mar.)
