@ Free PDF Perforated Heart: A Novel, by Eric Bogosian

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Almost forty years after moving to Manhattan, author Richard Morris has achieved if not stratospheric renown then at least the accomplished career and caliber of fame that he envisioned for himself as a younger man. Now financially comfortable and artistically embittered, Richard is at his home upstate recuperating from heart surgery and nursing resentment toward his publisher and his reading public who have found new, more exciting writers and left his star to wane.

In his attic, Richard comes across a stack of notebooks, the journals he began keeping when he arrived in New York in the late '70s. He is alternately fascinated and repelled by the young man he meets in these pages: hilariously naïve and egotistically misguided, the younger Richard compulsively absorbs everything around him from art and creativity to sex and drugs. As he reads more about himself, written by himself, Richard discovers that the pivotal moments of self-invention -- and self-realization -- occur far outside the conventional chronology of a lifetime.

Perforated Heart explores two wholly different characters -- a young, ambitious artist and his older self, jaded by both success and failure -- and creates an unforgettable portrait of the two men who inhabit the one individual. By turns meditative, deftly observant, and scathingly analytical, Eric Bogosian re-creates the landscape and atmosphere of 1970s New York City with fresh, vivid imagery and reveals a powerful commentary on the dynamic between creativity and commerce in the artistic world. Perforated Heart is his most rewarding and penetrating novel yet, with prose that reflects an equally astonishing range of experience and emotion.

• Sales Rank: #2780598 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-05
• Released on: 2009-05-05
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.10" w x 6.25" l, 1.06 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Playwright and actor Bogosian presents in his Rothian third novel the diaries of a once-prominent author embittered by his declining fame. The diary of Richard Morris begins with the writer losing a major award to a lesser talent, his latest book a failure and his agent busying himself with more marketable clients. Death and the prospect of being forgotten hound him, and heart surgery leaves him with a metaphorically convenient scar. Housebound while recovering from the operation and hiding from the affections of his young girlfriend, Richard becomes engrossed in his diaries of 30 years earlier, when he was new to New York City. While these notebooks reveal what a total idiot the young writer was, the elder Richard fails to notice how very little has changed. Richard remains a man who mistakes self-destruction for authenticity and is utterly incapable of seeing himself as others see him—which is aggravated when his literary fortunes take a welcome, belated turn and faces from his past show up in the present. Richard is a grade-A bastard, and his rise and fall and rise again exemplifies the often arbitrary and opportunistic machinery of the literary world and operators within it. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Perforated Heart is the grown-up version of Next Stop Greenwich Village. It is, in alternating sections, the story of a young literary lion's fierce ambition and of the same lion in late middle-age, still dangerous, still jealous of rivals, but startling himself with the long look back and the not-so-long look ahead. In this novel Bogosian says things about ambition and energy that very few dare to -- or are in a position to. It is completely engrossing. On fire from beginning to end." -- John Casey, author of National Book Award winner Spartina

"Perforated Heart is overflowing with insight and pain and it cuts with thrilling truth. Eric Bogosian was the first and remains the best at digging deep and fearlessly into the American male's heart of darkness." -- Neil LaBute

"Eric Bogosian has an ear for the way Americans talk. He also has an entertaining knack for exposing the appalling yet hilarious way American men think." -- Sarah Vowell, author of The Wordy Shipmates and Assassination Vacation

"[Bogosian's character] summons up memories of his potent, everything-possible youth. The narrative switches back and forth from the present day to the seventies, years that Morris filled with every imaginable excess of sex and drugs. Bogosian handles this rapid backward-and-forward deftly, his prose flowing smoothly and vividly, and his characters lively." -- Booklist

About the Author
Eric Bogosian is the author of Mall, the plays Talk Radio, subUrbia and Griller, and the Obie Award-winning solo performances Drinking in America, Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead and Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll. He is the recipient of the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Award, a Drama Desk Award, and two NEA fellowships. An actor who has appeared in more than a dozen feature films and television shows, Bogosian lives in New York City.

Most helpful customer reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Young Artists, Beware
By Kevin D
In his latest novel, Eric Bogosian offers a cautionary tale about life, death, love, and art (though not in that order). Perforated Heart is the story of two Richard Morrises: one, a successful fiction writer in 2006 who, after heart surgery, goes to recuperate at his country home in Connecticut, where he rediscovers his journals from 30 years earlier; and the second is the young Richard, circa 1976, just beginning as a writer and resident of New York City.

Bogosian is back in his element with this first person narrative (his last two novels were in the third person) which is more the style of his monologues. Structured as a journal (like his Notes from Underground), Perforated Heart lets the character tell the story, and Bogosian succeeds at creating two distinct voices for young Richard and old Richard. Young Richard is brash but passionate; old Richard is refined but cynical. Old Richard bears a striking resemblance to David Blau, from Bogosian's Red Angel, while young Richard is more reminiscent of Barry Champlain from Talk Radio.

The elder Richard is a bit of a recluse, but in his earlier life he was surrounded by a colorful cast of characters. The apartment he shared with a man named Haim and a woman named Dagmara could have come from the pages of Sartre's No Exit: Haim loves Dagmara, Dagmara is in love with Richard, and Richard is in love with himself. Richard's acquaintances are rendered somewhat 2-dimensionally in his journals, serving mainly as his companions on a series of crazy party and nightlife adventures. The most memorable of these characters is Big John, the mysterious, stuttering, little-known-history spouting drug dealer (I kept waiting for John to say, "And these are my dogs, Harley and Davidson.")

Richard seeks out new experiences and altered states of consciousness, seemingly as field research for his writing. What is he researching? Life--human existence. His transition from wild child to successful writer provides the main crux of the story (although I imagine the path to sobriety is more difficult than Richard, or Bogosian, lets on).

But is all of his sexual and chemically induced "experience" supposed to convince us that Richard is a great writer? Here Bogosian stumbles somewhat with the story-within-the-story trap. There is occasional talk of Richard's new novel, "A Gentle Death," but we're just supposed to take it on faith that the book is really good. While it was easy for me to buy the fact that Reba in Wasted Beauty was model gorgeous after Bogosian described her appearance, I didn't like simply being told that Richard's book is good. Don't tell me his book is good; show me, and I'll be the judge. Granted, Richard's journals are coherent, which would suggest that he's a competent writer, but with respect to "A Gentle Death"--there's no "there" there.

Despite his achievements and professional success, Richard's personal life is a disaster, but he has only himself to blame. He revisits some of his old friends and discovers a 3rd dimension to them, but it only seems to stoke the fires of his self-loathing (or his loathing of his younger self, anyway). The climax is somewhat anticlimactic, but perhaps that's the point? That in our youth obsessed culture we tend to shoot our proverbial wad earlier than we'd like.

The Fan, a character from Bogosian's Pounding Nails in the Floor with My Forehead, shows up toward the end of the book, which gives old Richard a chance to say what he might have said to his younger self. Tragically, however, Richard always wants what he can't have and rejects those who love (or might love) him.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Obsession works
By mark jabbour
PERFORATED HEART (2009) by Eric Bogosian is a fascinating study in obsession for pussy, money, and fame. In this instance that obsession revolves around the life of a middle-aged, successful, American Jew writer in New York who reflects back on his path via his journal from the mid 70's, as he struggles in the present (2006-7) to reclaim his place atop the literary field. This is an intensely honest story and I could identify with it completely. I agree with most all of the positions the main character, Richard Morris, takes on the human condition and what it takes to succeed. I can relate to his methodology, and the relationship problems that ensue from it. He is single-minded, selfish, and driven completely by his obsessions. He attempts to defend them as unchangeable facets of his genetic make-up, or "fate," as he calls it. He posits that he is an artist and must be faithful only to his craft/art - a seeker, recorder, actor, and teller of truth -- and damn the consequences. Is his self-image accurate? Others disagree--friends and lovers. (eg. pgs. 204-212. Was it consensual sex or rape?) There is scene after scene that Bogosian writes about that I found myself saying, "damn - perfect! I've been there." Be those scenes back in the 70's or present day. "Big John?" I know him, and in fact just tried to find him. "Zim?" Know him, too, and in fact had just that same confrontation (pg. 214-217) last month. "Elizabeth?" Yep. And so on through all the characters and their interactions. Eerie. Probably, that's because (apparently) the author and I are the same age. But, we are not the same person. We have our different "fates,' locales, and traits; i.e. personalities and interactions. The character, Richard Morris, has a fixation on beauty, female beauty; and was born on March 6, 1950, "The Day Of The Beauty Lovers" (according to "The Secret language of Birthdays.") Eerie. I am going to purchase this book for my library, and maybe a few more for some "friends." Is this book autobiographical? I don't know, don't know the author. But, I know it's good, very good, and honest and true. I can't, however, give it five stars because of the ending. Endings in novels are so hard ...

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Richard Morris Ain't No Rilke
By Stephen W. Montagne
In his latest novel, "Perforated Heart", Eric Bogosian rumbles, tumbles and thrashes his way through a topic he knows all too well: the male psyche and the male psyche on art (this is your male brain, this is your male ego, this is your male brain/ego attempting to become famous as a literary artist... be afraid, be very, very afraid).

If a gentle reader picks up "Perforated Heart" having no prior knowledge of Eric Bogosian's work as an actor and writer for stage, screen and television, nor having read his previous two excellently rendered offerings "Mall" and "Wasted Beauty", they would probably take it at face value that the author has created a gemini character - two separate ids that are actually one in the same person - from different times in our recent history that have a passionate and obsessive connection to the city of New York. Thus the story of Richard Morris (past and somewhat present) is as much about New York as it is an examination of a self-absorbed, self-serving, nihilistic and desirous of all things sensuous and vainglorious writer reliving, through journal entries, his former self while grappling with the self he loves to loathe and loathes to love.

But being familiar with Eric Bogosian the performing artist (which is NOT the same as "performance art"), the media persona, the theatrical craftsman and monologists makes the reading of "Perforated Heart" all the more rich of an experience. Therefore, I'd encourage you to check out Bogosian's plays, one-man shows, movies and novels (not much about his work as an actor on television will add to the enjoyment of "Perforated Heart" - in fact, there is somewhat of a disconnect between the journeyman actor Eric Bogosian serving the storylines of a network procedural cop drama, and the downtown artist who hung out with modern dancers, graphic and performance artists, and the Avant-garde/downtown underground set that - during the Punk Rock heydays of the late-1970s - partied the nights away in joints like CB-GBs and the Kitchen. Because of this, the argument could be made - from an armchair psychologist - that Bogosian's present state as a suburbanite husband and father - as well as becoming a mainstream actor on a network franchise, coupled with his recent decision to retire his work as solo-performer -propelled him to write "Perforated Heart" to reconnect with (and admonish) that edgy, hard drinking and drugging young man with whom he no longer relates, while juxtaposing the confessional prose of his fifty-something alter-ego Richard Morris who is not encumbered by wife and kids and other mundane everyday rituals.)

The powerful force that propels "Perforated Heart" is that every journal entry, even the most mundane, has within it an honesty and awareness that the author is indeed in on the joke. The book itself is fascinating because it's a fictional autobiography, almost as if it is the ghost of a ghost. Thus there's something rather haunting and penetrating about it that I found lingered with me days after completion.

As mentioned in a previous reader comment, elements of a character from one of Bogosian's solo works called "The Fan" appears in the final pages and becomes the target for the protagonist Richard Morris' venom and resentment. Richard meets a young man named Theo at the mental health facility where he goes to visit an old friend of his named Big John (30 years prior, John and Richard had a falling out because John caught Richard audio taping their conversations without his knowledge or consent. Richard used these tapes as a basis for his short stories which launched his career as a writer). Richard takes a shine to Theo and they begin somewhat of a friendship - but the terms of the friendship are dictated solely by Richard (as is usually the case when a younger person seeks mentorship from an older more established mentor). In short, Morris is definitely not Rilke and this is no "Letters to a Young Poet" for sure! The following are excerpts from the book:

"And so this kid Theo walks into my life. Lovely, vibrant, eager, ambitious, handsome, obnoxious, self-involved Theo. He made a decision to visit the lion in his den. Thought the lion would help him out. No, Theo. Lions don't give aid, they watch the young and helpless pups with apparent disinterest. Then they eat them.

What did Theo think I was going to do? Make introductions to editors and publishers and all my buddies? But, Theo, it's your fight. You break down the doors on your own, just as I did. No one did it for me. I'm not doing it for you.

I see it in your eyes. The rapacious hunger for what belongs to me, for my achievement. But, Theo, you can't just walk up to me and take it. It's mine."

Those passages illuminate Richard Morris' perforated heart and clarify - on a slightly metaphysical examination - the reason why it required surgery. There's absolutely no room for sentimentality in Richard Morris' world. He could be nostalgic, at times empathetic (specifically when dealing with the death of an elderly aunt whose letters and writings had been left in his possession for safekeeping) and prone to reminisce about the past - but never sentimental. Therefore, Richard is totally incapable of offering any kind of mentorship or Rilke like support for young Theo on his journey towards the literary limelight. Morris has not this kind of love in his heart.

Why? I put the book down and continued to ask myself questions for days after. Why so coldhearted toward Theo who had so much admiration for Richard and wanted so much to be accepted and appreciated by him? How could Richard be such a powerful writer when he was such an unremitting bastard? These are universal questions of course. Like: why do bad things happen to good people? (Or as comedian Lewis Black once said in his stand-up routine: "the good die young, but pricks live forever!")

What I, as the reader, appreciate most about Eric Bogosian as a novelist is that he dares to present the ugliness of human nature without apology. There's a beauty in his honesty as well as a frustration with how much the world can suck. It's also frustrating that a prick like Richard Morris gains success and notoriety on the world stage, while others with congenial hearts and more caring dispositions toil endless in obscurity and their work is never discovered nor their talents ever appreciated. I know that I didn't like Richard Morris, but I'm "a fan" of Eric Bogosian. Is Bogosian like Richard Morris in his personal life? Doubtful. This is, after all, a work of fiction probably sprung from the experience of Bogosian finding journals he kept when he was first starting out in his 20s back in those Punk heydays of the late-70s.

Being able to remove himself from the experience by creating two fictional characters from two separate times in one man's life allowed him the opportunity to do what he does best: explore the darker side of fame, fortune, male insecurities and abusive behavior and the obsessive nature of trying to achieve recognition as an artist in a world of vacuous commercialism and material excess.

Bogosian's most confessional offering is probably his most fully realized and one that, after the last page is read, may haunt your psyche like a ghost for days to follow.

[...]

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# PDF Ebook At All Costs (Honor Harrington #11), by David Weber

PDF Ebook At All Costs (Honor Harrington #11), by David Weber

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What price victory? The war with the Republic of Haven has resumed . . . disastrously for the Star Kingdom of Manticore. Admiral Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Steadholder and Duchess Harrington, the single victorious Allied commander of the opening phase of the new war, has been recalled from the Sidemore System to command Eighth Fleet. Everyone knows Eighth Fleet is the Alliance's primary offensive command, which makes it the natural assignment for the woman the media calls “the Salamander.” But what most of the public DOESN'T know is that not only are the Star Kingdom and its Allies badly outnumbered by the Republic's new fleet, but that the odds are going to get steadily worse. Eighth Fleet's job is to somehow prevent those odds from crushing the Alliance before the Star Kingdom can regain its strategic balance. It's a job which won't be done cheaply. Honor Harrington must meet her formidable responsibilities with inferior forces even as she copes with tumultuous changes in her personal and public life. The alternative to victory is total defeat, yet this time the COST of victory will be agonizingly high.

• Sales Rank: #152775 in Books
• Brand: Weber, David
• Model: 3587215
• Published on: 2007-09-25
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 6.75" h x 1.70" w x 4.19" l,
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 912 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Nobody does space opera better than Weber, and his heroine, Honor Harrington, introduced in On Basilisk Station (1993), remains as engaging as ever in the latest tome to chronicle her adventures. At the start, intelligence agents of the newly democratic Republic of Haven detect a hidden hand behind their renewed hostilities with the Star Kingdom of Manticore. As the Havenites struggle to convince their foes that they are being manipulated by common enemies among the genetic slave trade, the Manticoreans force their hand until there's no alternative but the Mother of All Space Battles. Weber manages to invert the respective moral positions of his sides quite adroitly, showing how emotion and prejudice can impair even the finest among us. The sweep of interstellar conflict contrasts with developments in Honor's personal life that could have been maudlin, but succeed in being highly moving. Reading like a fusion of Horatio Hornblower, Robert A. Heinlein and Tom Clancy, this is easily the best installment in the series to date; one can well imagine that when future star warriors develop their tactics, Weber's narratives will provide a template. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Seasoned voyagers through Weber's Honorverse (the Honor in question being Harrington) mustn't be put off by the stupendous size of the eleventh volume of the lady's adventures. All the pages are needed to encompass a fast-paced tale that brings together all the elements developed in previous books, and push them a good way along toward an ultimate conclusion. [...] The climax is bloody and fine preparation for at least one more desperate round of fighting. It also leaves Honor reflecting on the price of war in warriors' lives. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
David Weber is the science fiction phenomenon of the decade. His popular Honor Harrington novels are New York Times best sellers and can’t come out fast enough for his devoted readers. In addition to the Honor Harrington series, he has written many top-selling science fiction novels, all for Baen, including Empire from the Ashes, The Apocalypse Troll, and In Fury Born. He has also begun a top-selling epic SF adventure series in collaboration with John Ringo, with four novels so far: March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We Few. His Wind Rider’s Oath, another New York Times best seller, continues his popular Bahzell fantasy adventure series.

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
EXCELLENT--AS USUAL!
By James Brightly
All of David's books grab you and won't let you go until the end. I think I have read most of them.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
At All Costs (Honor Harrington #11) ...
By Linda L. Dawson
This book arrived in excellent condition and I would highly recommend this book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
A roller coaster read
By K. N. Nelson
The short and sweet of it is this: Lots of blazing battles where Honor realizes how it feels to have been "out of the direct battle loop" during her years of teaching when she is assigned command of 8th Fleet and loses a big battle with Haven. Always the cool and collected Captain/Admiral/etc she seems better with each succeeding battle and then she really nails it at the largest battle/massacre ever between Manticore and Haven when the Peeps wipe out both Home Fleet and 3rd Fleet defending Manticore A and Sphinx. She hypers in and brings the Peeps a close up of her ability to reduce Haven's remaining hulls to scrap metal. Haven's remaining fleet are forced to surrender when faced with impossible technological superiority by the Manty forces under Harrington's command. She picks close to a hundred ships of the wall and smaller craft with the demand they remain intact for their technology and the prize of war bounty for their capture. Plus she has captured a half million Haven crew AND Lester Tourville as POWs. What a bargaining chip for the next book.

I have to agree with several of the other reviewers that the introduction of babies and the sickening tee-hee conversations between Allison Harrington and Emily Alexander-Harrington is enough to make a person really nauseated. I had fears that David was following the footsteps of Nora Roberts with the "broody female" stereotype. And there certainly is a bit of it in this story especially with the increasingly repellant Emily. Thankfully, Honor is not saddled with that kind of silliness and in her dignified, quiet way does parent her infant with her telempathic skills. This a beautiful aspect of the story.

I also agree with others at how well David has drawn his characters and how you know and feel for them. For myself, his characterization of Queen Elizabeth is enough to make you want to pound that ridiculous, hyperreactive, anger driven, unreasoning emotional termangant into the ground. Queen? Not! More like spoiled brat/child going nah nah nah. Q.E.'s big thing is playing queen-fairy like creature who goes around sprinkling awards all over Honor and other pets, earned or otherwise. Another thought: Where was Hamish Alexander hiding most of this story apart from fielding snarky comments from his first wife Emily? I felt like he had become a "yes dear" type man who has nearly disappeared due to scant dialog in the story.

This time the Manties cannot blame High Ridge and the former Manty government for the failure to be willing to negotiate rather than go to War. Ole Q.E. is the dimwit behind Manticore's near destruction. She was driven by her hatred and bigotry toward Haven and she was unforgiveably intransigient and utterly wrong. That's got to be a BIG theme of the next story. I'd love to see her give over to a more balanced monarch.

I can't wait for the next book in this series to learn how Haven reacts to their massive fleet's annhilation and capture by the Manties, and what is in store with the Sollies. Hopefully Eloise Pritchard, Tom Theisman and others can broker a deal with Manticore and unite to face off the Sollies and Manpower, Mesa and others.

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^ Ebook Download Homemade: The Heart and Science of Handcrafts, by Carol Endler Sterbenz

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Offering an abundance of information and inspiration, Homemade is a revelatory addition to the craft world—the ultimate reference book on crafting and also a warm, engagingly written book that combines history and personal narrative with the science that makes a craft possible and the passion that inspires it.

Carol Endler Sterbenz is a crafter, a teacher, a homemaker, a wife, and a mother. Raised by immigrant parents who taught her the enduring value of resourcefulness and creativity, she makes her lifetime of experience and infinite enthusiasm the foundation for Homemade. Sterbenz provides readers with not only practical information and direction but also a philosophy and methodology of crafting that build confidence and ability, making it easy to achieve truly professional results.

Teeming with clear, reliable, and thorough information on everything from tools and materials to techniques, Homemade is an essential guide to seven of the most beloved crafts: beading, the flower arts, paper crafting, hand printing, decoupage, decorative embellishing, and children’s arts and crafts.

Crafters—beginners and veterans alike—can turn to Homemade to learn which glues and finishes to use, how to form a perfect beaded loop, assemble a miniature robot, hollow out an egg, emboss paper, make a hand-tied bouquet, or transform a chandelier. Overflowing with hundreds of techniques; easy-to-follow step-by-step directions supported by more than eight hundred beautiful and precise hand-drawn illustrations, diagrams, and patterns; and countless insider secrets and troubleshooting tips, Homemade is an indispensable go-to reference no crafter should be without.

• Sales Rank: #1937357 in Books
• Published on: 2011-10-18
• Released on: 2011-10-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.70" w x 6.63" l, 2.68 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 800 pages

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Cheryl Mendelson Reviews Homemade: The Heart and Science of Handcrafts

Cheryl Mendelson is the author of Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House.

This thorough, inviting, and lucidly written book deserves a place on a shelf in every home. Carol Sterbenz is a lifelong crafter who learned her love of creating at her talented parents' knees, along with skills and familiarity with a wide variety of materials and techniques. What makes this book special is its highly knowledgeable update of tradition through contemporary materials and techniques by someone full of ingenuity, who really knows her stuff and has plenty of exciting ideas for projects. As any book on making lovely things should be, this one is itself a lovely object, with wonderful line drawings and photos that make things clear, an appealing dust cover, paper you love to touch, and that nice book smell.

It is a huge work, nearly 800 pages long, and it covers beading, working with flowers and foliage (fresh and artificial), paper, hand printing (block, stencil, screen, and more), decoupage, glass etching, candle making--in fact too much to tell. Her instructions are superb. If you want to get your children away from their computers and electronic entertainments for a while, you will love Chapter Seven, "Children's Arts and Crafts," which has everything they want and need. Sterbenz is also a former teacher as well as a mother, and she knows what skills are appropriate to a child's age and what projects will excite their interest.

Sterbenz's knowledge of craft comes directly out of folk traditions and includes ideas passed on from generation to generation. But, for her, craft isn't just imitating great-grandparents and working with their materials and tastes. It's adopting their attitudes, their flexibility, their keen eye for the potential of objects and goods (including, often enough, materials the older generations themselves never have heard of), their affection for beauty, and their natural inclination to make things out of the materials in their world, their trust in their own taste, and—most important of all—their joy and satisfaction in making something from scratch.

Crafters, actual and would-be, will surely value this book highly, but so will everyone who takes special pleasure in attractive material objects marked by the unique stamp of some real person's heart, soul, and hands. That, of course, is just about everyone--teens and twenty-somethings who yearn to engage with the physical world, working people looking for leisure pleasure, and retirees who have always loved making things and at last have some time to indulge that love. --Cheryl Mendelson

About the Author
Carol Endler Sterbenz is a well-known author, editor, and media personality. She has written more than twenty-five craft and decorating books including Pottery Barn Design Library: Storage and Display, American Country Folk Crafts, and the Instant Gratification series (Chronicle Books). A former syndicated columnist of By Hand and Primary Colors: Interiors, Ms. Sterbenz was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly magazine Handcraft Illustrated. She lives with her husband, John, in Westchester County in NY.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction


YOUNG ADMIRER: Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?

J. S. BACH: My dear fellow, I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room.

—Laurens van der Post,

Jung and the Story of Our Time, 1975

I’ve heard it said that a carpenter with a hammer sees nails everywhere. I say a crafter with imagination sees handcrafts everywhere. I know I do. I see sparkling bracelets in a scattering of beads, keepsake journals in sheets of handmade paper, and jointed dolls in a lump of clay. An ever-present part of my childhood, handcrafts were my playthings. They were part of my home education. I was encouraged from an early age to express my ideas freely, and I took readily to arts and crafts materials, which were supplied in abundance. I was expected to know how to embroider, draw, paint, cultivate a garden, and take care of a home with resourcefulness and discipline. Through a lifelong practice of making things by hand, I have come to understand my world and my place in it, first as a daughter of immigrant parents, then as a wife and a mother, a teacher of schoolchildren, a craft designer, and an author of books about handcrafts. Handcrafts are central to who I am; they are part of the rhythm of my everyday life.

It all began with my parents. My mother was born in Finland at the beginning of the twentieth century and spent her early childhood in Kolhola, a little village near a lake where fir trees outnumbered the people. In winter, she skied across a field to a one-room schoolhouse on finely crafted skis made by her oldest brother. There were four grades in one room. Discipline was strictly enforced. After the academic fundamentals, the girls and boys were divided into two groups. Girls were taught needlework, with more sophisticated handwork introduced as the girls got older: hand sewing and knitting in the first grade, embroidery in the second and third, and by fourth grade, using a treadle sewing machine to make a man’s dress shirt. Boys were taught woodworking and cabinetry.

After school my mother returned home to a long dwelling made of hewn logs cut from the forestland owned by her father’s family. Once inside the door, hand-loomed runners painted bands of color along the wood floor, which was made of smooth planks cleaned once a week by hand using brushes and fine sand until they were as white as birch bark. Oil lamps and lighted faggots of wood that protruded from specially made holes in the log walls were used to light the rooms during the long winter evenings. On many of these evenings my mother would sit in their glow, embroidering alphabets, geometric patterns, and simple flowers onto thick handwoven linen cloth. The thread for the cloth was spun from flax that grew in the family’s fields. On Saturdays, she would help her mother make the beds, pinching the corners of the stiff, snow-white linen into knife-sharp folds and making sure the panels embroidered with monograms were carefully positioned over the blankets.

Her mother and teachers were not the only ones who believed that children should uphold high standards in the home arts. The importance of taking pride in one’s work and avoiding idleness were enduring values of social custom that the elders of the village upheld by keeping children under their watchful eye. One summer while my mother was babysitting an infant, soothing him to sleep by pressing her foot against the rocker of a hand-carved cradle, the child’s grandfather complained that certainly she could be doing something with her hands, too. And summer was certainly the time to try an ambitious project as daylight lasted until midnight, and only heavy woolen shades made from blanket-like cloth could keep the sun from streaming through the windows. Women took advantage of the natural light to sew, knit, crochet, bake, and keep their homes scrupulously organized and well-functioning. In winter, an eerie twilight brightened the sky for only two hours around noon, after which darkness enveloped the land again and all handwork had to be done by the light of an oil lamp or on weekends after chores.

My mother left Finland when she was twelve, immigrating to Canada, and finally finding her way to New York City, where she met and married my father. Born in Dresden, Germany, to a German father and a Danish mother, my father came to America in 1933 when he was twenty-five years old. When he first arrived in New York, he and a friend opened a photography store and portrait studio on Broadway in Manhattan. When the business closed several years later, he turned his trained eye and exacting standards to carpentry, a craft which provided for his growing family.

Although his daily work as a carpenter required large power tools, planes, and rasps, his evenings and weekends were spent making small pieces of furniture and carving sculptures of figures, street scenes, and sailing ships. He would spend hours deftly wielding his gouges, chisels, files, and rifflers, one time carving a small country village that he then painted with oils and set into a frame. I watched, utterly absorbed. Enveloped in the scent of linseed oil and turpentine, I learned how to sharpen a gouge like a razor by moving the tool in a circular motion, pushing the gouge forward before easing up on the tool on the way back across a sharpening stone. I learned to mix paint, experimenting with color on the wooden lids of cigar boxes. One year my father made three wooden banks for my two sisters and me. Each bank was an architectural model of a 1940s-style cottage with a chimney through which we could drop our allowance, listening for the sharp “tink” of the coins as they landed on the rising heap of money inside.

Of the many disciplines my father introduced to me, photography was the one I pursued with the greatest interest. I loved the chemistry involved in processing film and making prints and was enthralled each time a hidden image conjured itself, ghostlike, on a sheet of photo paper. My father and I worked together in our home in Bellerose, New York, where a darkroom was built in our basement and outfitted with the professional equipment originally used in his photography store. During the many hours spent there, my father taught me about the art of photography, as well as about the tools and techniques of printing black-and-white photographs. I also learned, by my father’s example, about the importance of commitment to good workmanship, which he explained as a seamless mix of discipline and imagination. He promised that if I put time and effort into learning a skill, I would be rewarded with moments of deep satisfaction, which, in turn, would motivate me to search further for the undiscovered possibilities in the materials with which I worked. I also would discover unexpressed potential in myself and be able to produce work that was beyond my expectations. He was right, but at that time, caught in the confusing labyrinth of rules and cautions and sorting out the variables of taking good pictures and making good prints, I didn’t see that as clearly as I do now.

My father’s practical philosophy and methodical approach to photography found a complement in my mother’s approach to handcrafts. As a child I would sit next to her and practice my embroidery; I would hold a piece of linen and a threaded needle and try to sew straight lines or form the letters of the alphabet, ultimately progressing from a modest sampler to small tablecloths and pillowcases. Today, I’m keenly aware of how my mother ensured an everlasting tie between us by passing on to me the traditions she learned growing up. What stands out is her resourcefulness—like the time she made a ballerina tutu in the style of a Degas sculpture from real parachute silk saved after the war—a quality I was to inherit from her. Encouraged to look to my surroundings for craft supplies, I learned to braid the stems of flowering clover into a bracelet, weave strips of paper into heart-shaped baskets, glue toothpicks together to make a miniature log cabin, and carve bars of Ivory soap into polar bears and rabbits.

My sisters and I led very structured lives that did not include much television. Our weekly viewing was limited to half an hour. An early favorite was I Remember Mama, a show about a Scandinavian family that had immigrated to America. Our home life was centered on becoming “well-rounded” and the American dream of getting a good education. When I was in my early twenties, I received my bachelor of science and master of science degrees in elementary education and spent five glorious years in the classroom, weaving crafts into the curriculum as often as they would support learning. It was during those years that my belief that crafts opened children to discovery was forged.

During my second year of teaching I married John Sterbenz, coupling my life and my name with his. John taught mathematics in a suburban high school, but then he became a stockbroker and we moved into our first house in East Setauket, New York. Our lives shifted seismically with the birth of our first daughter, Genevieve. Suddenly, I saw life through the lens of motherhood, and I began to measure my free time in baby naps and dryer loads. When our son Rodney was born, we moved to a house by the bay in Huntington, Long Island, where we would also welcome our second daughter, Gabrielle. As far back as I can remember, my children did arts and crafts of some sort. While still in a high chair, each began to finger-paint and squish clay. As they got older, craft activities like drawing, painting, and model-making moved to the kitchen table, or to the basement or the backyard, and sometimes to the beach across the street from our house where they tie-dyed T-shirts and made sand candles. Crafts seemed to maroon us on these small domestic islands where time slowed down. The kids had fun. I had fun. Boredom disappeared. Joy took hold. As the children became engrossed in their projects, it was as if they entered an inner world and came back out with ideas that went on to be revealed impeccably in 3-D and Technicolor. I kept their projects for years, years, not wanting to part with a single one.

During the period when I was fully engaged in child-rearing and home-keeping, I also got together with my friends, meeting weekly at one of our houses to catch up with what was going on in our lives while doing crafts. Whether gathered around a kitchen table or spread out in a living room, I felt the uncomplicated pleasure of belonging, the comfort of sharing laughs and worries, advice, and know-how. Through crafts our friendships deepened and our crafting repertoire grew. Each of us had a special skill that we shared with the others—quilting, sewing, beading, or whatever seemed like fun. One year we made beaded Christmas trees, sitting together for hours and hours, painstakingly counting and threading tiny beads on wire branches and adding ornaments that were only one seed bead wide. As intricate as the maneuvers were, I only remember the easy camaraderie. I look back and wonder how among the demands of organizing a home and raising my children I could focus on so small a project, but I did.

As I look back, I can see that I always carried an unbridled love for making things by hand. I know that I am not alone in this. There are countless numbers of crafters who persist in making things by hand in spite of the fact that our super-automated society can supply us with material goods to meet our every need. We leave these mass-produced items on store shelves and retreat in goodly numbers to work spaces tucked under attic eaves, to kitchen tables cleared of the evening meal, or to professional studios to take up our handwork and make something brand-new. I believe we are motivated to make things by hand for several reasons, but being practical isn’t really one of them. Frankly, it is often easier, quicker, and less expensive to simply buy stuff, but we don’t. I believe that, in part, we enjoy creating something from scratch, one at a time, no two exactly alike. We take pride in our ability to transform raw materials into objects of aesthetic and functional value that help us realize and express our personal style. We like knowing precisely how to apply a smooth coat of finish, how to restore a chandelier with good bones, or how to wrap a gift and tie a loopy bow.

I believe we draw closer to the heart of the matter when we speak about connection. Connection is a powerful motivator for picking up our set of paints or turning off the television to teach a young child to mold clay. We present our handmade things as gifts, we show them off at fairs, we affix them to our refrigerator doors. We use our hands to establish and solidify the connection to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to the spaces we inhabit. Making something by hand makes us part of a community of kindred spirits who speak the same language. Sitting with friends hour after hour, week after week, gluing photographs and embellishments onto the pages of our scrapbooks or waking before sunrise to pick out the most perfect green roses for a daughter’s wedding bouquet when a New York City floral designer would gladly have done it seems, well, excessive . . . and yet necessary, because doing these things keeps us connected.

But the crafting instinct goes even deeper. I believe we are driven by an innate ambition to express ourselves. Creativity powers our search for the perfect bead, the right color paint, the secret to unblemished gilding. While we strive for expert craftsmanship, it is not for its own sake, but rather, to bring a project as perfectly close to our vision of it as we can. When we give our handcrafts to others, we pass on more than a tangible object, we pass on our ideas, initiating a transgenerational relay that is endless and soothing. Making something by hand is our way of announcing our human presence, to become known and to leave a witness of our presence here on earth.

Over my many years of crafting, I made some discoveries that remain as true today as they were when I was a total beginner. Foremost was my interest level; I discovered that when I had a genuine interest in a craft, I had more fun doing it and was likely to achieve better results. The more I learned and practiced, the more accomplished I became.

The materials used in crafting were a definite draw. When I allowed my senses to guide me, I tended to choose new crafts that held my interest for years to become fulfilling, long-lasting pursuits. The strong connection I felt with certain materials motivated me to continue working through the difficult parts of a technique or to try to find out what a particular craft material could do. Photography pulled me in from the moment I saw a sheet of photo paper change from the color of moonlight to layered tones of gray and black and finally to a recognizable image—I never tired of making pictures. The shimmering hand of rayon velvet inspired me to try embossing it with a coil of wire and a household iron.

A particularly appealing aspect of crafts is their accessibility. Any craft I ever tried always had a nonintimidating point of entry. I could begin at an elementary level, or I could build on an existing foundation of experience and skills. I could always proceed at my own pace. If I got stuck, I knew I could find another crafter who would be willing to help me. Crafters consider themselves part of a sharing artistic community. Being a part of a crafting group always made my crafting experiences richer, so I made a habit over the years of starting or joining crafting groups wherever I lived.

Following my intuition has proved reliable in crafting. Intuitive choices unfailingly felt right, not just in surface things like color or pattern, but right in deeper ways too, like choosing to do what was important to me. Intuition told me that it was impossible to create and judge at the same time. Creativity and critique are both essential, each at the appropriate time, but put together, they work against each other. Judgment shut down my creative flow and slowed my work, so I stopped listening to judgment from myself and others and turned instead to my own creative voice.

Of course, I made a lot of mistakes in the beginning. Frankly, I still make them; they are fewer in number than before but often more complicated in nature, though rarely catastrophic enough to warrant starting a project from scratch. I have come to appreciate mistakes as an inevitable part of the crafting process and have also been pleasantly surprised to find that some “mistakes” aren’t mistakes at all, simply unexpected outcomes that I end up liking better than the result I first pictured. The ordinary, obvious precautions—practice on scrap materials, read project directions thoroughly, take my time, stay organized, keep my tools in good working order—become so easy to forget as I become engrossed in the creative process. Mishaps of any nature always raise my awareness, providing insights into how I might do something differently next time.

As I continue to craft, I am sure I will make new discoveries to direct and guide me. No doubt, you will develop your own inner guidance system as you go along. Learn to connect with your inner voice, gravitate toward materials you love, and you will find that your crafting hours are filled with fun and satisfaction.

The idea for this book first came to me a decade ago, and it finally took shape in the last four years when a series of serendipitous events moved all the cosmic tumblers into place at one time. I wanted to write a comprehensive one-volume reference work that informed and inspired the crafter, that was based on extensive firsthand experience and in-depth research, that presented a broad cross section of handcrafts, and that took the crafter from the beginning level of each particular craft to the more advanced. It was a book I looked for and couldn’t find anywhere.

My many years of making things revealed that while there would always be new and evolving styles to influence the outward appearance of my craft designs, the underlying set of technical sequences remained fundamentally the same. Alterations usually came through advancements made in technology, tool design, or chemical formulas. With this in mind, I decided that instead of presenting a synopsis of traditional handcrafts or focusing on the hip craft du jour, I would take a deep look at techniques that had stood the test of time, often longer than two centuries, along with those that were developed recently, and present an amalgam of both in a style that was fresh, reliable, and contemporary. To that end, I reexamined many traditional crafts, reinterpreted archaic methods, and when it seemed wise to do so, updated the methods and techniques to arrive at the best methods for ease of crafting and the highest possible standard of workmanship and beauty.

The book is organized into seven broad chapters, each featuring a handcraft category that is popular and easy to learn. All that is required to practice any of them is an interest (or better, an enthusiasm), some basic dexterity, and a bit of time. The book works for both the beginner and the veteran crafter, providing a dependable working manual from which to learn a craft from the ground up or develop the expertise to advance to the next level.

The following handcrafts are featured: beading, floral arts, paper crafting, hand printing, decoupage, decorative embellishing, and children’s arts and crafts. Each chapter is composed of two distinct parts. “The Heart” speaks to the personal and historical practices of the handcraft, and “The Science” is an illustrated guide to all the salient materials, tools, and techniques. A collection of original projects based on the featured techniques rounds out each chapter. The techniques and projects are presented in easy-to-follow step-by-step directions and are often accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations and diagrams. Each numbered step begins with a one-line synopsis of what you are going to do, followed by a clear explanation that details how to accomplish the task, including some of the pertinent reasons behind the instruction. Of course, there are many ways to do things; I am presenting techniques that have worked consistently for me. At times, there may appear to be a lot of information, but the format of the book is designed to give you an immediate choice by separating the general crafting goal from the in-depth explanatory text; you can skim the headings to get a sense of what to do next or you can read all of the text. Proceeding in this way, you can establish your own crafting rhythm based on your level of experience. Working tips, troubleshooting guides, and cautions call attention to the more arduous or complicated parts of the crafting process to help you avoid pitfalls. Original patterns and artwork, referenced throughout the text, begin on page 681.

It is my hope that this book will become a trusted resource, one that you reach for when you are seeking reliable information, inspiration for new projects, or just some company along the way as you pursue your crafting.

© 2011 Carol Endler Sterbenz

Most helpful customer reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
The ULTIMATE craft book
By ReadingRoom
Whether you are a beginner craft person, expert, or just want to make something with your hands and imagination over the weekend, this is a great book which you will find useful for years to come. It is packed with craft projects and detailed, easy to follow directions on such a wide range of subjects and different crafting materials. It is the ultimate resource. And, what's more, Sterbenz's expertise shines through and makes you feel confident and inspired to try new projects and to explore your own ideas. I love this book. I bought one to keep and one to give for the holidays!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Inspiration Galore
By Momo
There's nothing I love more than a book that holds so eloquently all the information you'll need to create craft projects year-round. This is like a dream come true! It reminds me of those huge art books that teachers would have in school, where they'd flip through and find a project to do in class. The illustrations are amazing, this book is just so pretty..and I love that it's so easy to understand..AND how cool the projects are. There's stuff in there that I never even thought of making before, but I can't wait to try them all out. I feel like they should make an app for mobile phones where you can download videos of the projects.. that would be hot!

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Great Craft Reference Book
By Eileen
Do not expect a lot of color pictures in this book as you will be disappointed, there aren't any. But that out of the way, there are plenty of black and white illustrations and patterns the author provides for you to copy and enlarge (when necessary) to complete many of her suggested projects, once again, a good reason to buy the book and not the e-reader edition of this one. This is a great gook for anyone who enjoys crafts. It is like a big reference book, 750 pages of information, covering subjects from beading, floral arts, paper crafting, decoupage, decorative embellishing such as mirror etching, etched glass Christmas ornaments, gilding, dry-embossing velvet, creating a mosaic table and the list goes on. The book then provides a chapter on children's arts and crafts and ends with a chapter provided on patterns and original art covering many of the projects throughout the book. So, if you like crafts, you will like this book, it is filled with idea after idea for different projects. The only way it could be better would be if it had color pictures, but with so many projects, the book would have to be over a 1000 pages. Great reference book to include in your craft library.
Eileen

See all 12 customer reviews...

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Now featuring new instructions, new illustrations, and new information, The Principles of Knitting—beloved by knitters everywhere and one of the most requested out-of-print books for years—finally gets the revision that fans have been clamoring for!

A treasured guide beloved by knitters everywhere, the classic book The Principles of Knitting is finally available again in a fully revised and updated edition. This is the definitive book on knitting techniques, with valuable information for everyone from beginners to experienced knitters. June Hiatt presents not only a thorough, thoughtful approach to the craft, but also a passion for carrying on the art of knitting to future generations. She has repeatedly tested the various techniques and presents them with clear, easy-to-follow instructions—as well as an explanation of what each one can contribute to your knitting. Informed by decades of experience and thousands of hours of practice, this comprehensive resource offers a variety of ways to approach every skill and technique and offers solutions that can help solve the most challenging aspects of any knitting project.

The Principles of Knitting has been totally rewritten—new instructions, new illustrations, and new information. While the basics of knitting have not changed much, June’s understanding of the material has deepened over the last twenty-five years, and she’s eager to share what she has learned with the knitting world. In addition, the book has been reorganized to make it easier to use and has a gorgeous new design.

Reading The Principles of Knitting is like having a knitting mentor by your side who can answer any knitting question you have in an honest, intelligent, informed manner.

• Sales Rank: #72546 in Books
• Published on: 2012-02-14
• Released on: 2012-02-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 10.88" h x 2.50" w x 8.50" l, 4.40 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 736 pages

About the Author
June Hiatt is a reknowned knitting teacher and the author of the classic book THE PRINCIPLES OF KNITTING, considered the "bible" of knitting instruction books. She lives in San Francisco with her husband.

Most helpful customer reviews

183 of 186 people found the following review helpful.
Comprehensive and Worth the Wait
By Anastasia McPherson
I have been eyeing very expensive used copies of this classic of knitting technique for years. I was overjoyed to learn that it was going to be re-issued and immediately pre-ordered this item. I was stunned when the book arrived. Complete and comprehensive doesn't even begin to describe the contents of this book it is that overwhelming.

Beginning with self-teaching methods and all of the different cast-ons and knitting techniques it progresses to stitch patterns, decreases, increases, making adjustments in fit and design based on stitch patterns, finishing techniques - just everything. Circular knitting, knitting with beads, double-knitting, making allowances for patterns with a slant or an unusual shape are just a few of the techniques and problems surveyed. Solving problems to knitting in general and specific techniques is a part of each section. Color knitting is extensively covered, not only the usual stranded and intarsia knitting but all of the different Nordic and other methods of color knitting. It is all here and more. Lavishly illustrated in clear line drawings that demonstrate the techniques this book encompasses a lifetime of knitting expertise. For every knitter who has struggled to master a new technique or fix a seemingly insoluble problem or who has created a garment or item that bore no resemblance to the photograph on the pattern, this book shows you how to troubleshoot and fix.

Principles of Knitting covers all of the technical information without which the finished product is not what was intended or envisioned. Other books cover patterns, projects and stitches, this book ensures that the patterns are completed as intended. Other books show the knitter inspriational photos of lovely garments and items, this book ensures that those projects become a reality. A must for any knitter's library and a wonderful gift for the novice knitter. Highest possible recommendation.

118 of 121 people found the following review helpful.
Knitters Rejoice!
By Phyllis Staff
Those of us who are "dyed in the wool" knitters have been offered a treasure trove of spectacular books within the last 12 months, but this one, "The Principles of Knitting" tops my list of must-have volumes. Here's my take on June Hemmons Hiat's revised foundational volume:

PROS:

1. "Principles" starts at the beginning (e.g., how-tos, including knitting methods, cast-on, cast-off, selvages, and more basics) and proceeds to the most complex. She has included all the basics every knitter needs to understand.

2. Many knitting writers stress the importance of starting each project with a gauge swatch, but this volume includes a series of photos of swatches made with different yarns and weights. We know (from being told so often) we should always make the swatch, but often we are so ready to get going that we skip this most important step with sometimes sorry results. Now you can see why you must do this before plunging right into your pattern.

What was news to me is simple common sense that I have been woefully lacking - dress the swatch. Of course! It makes perfect sense that your swatch should reflect the same finishing that you'll apply to the finished garment. And that would explain why, sometimes, my garments do not exactly mirror my swatches.

3. I've recently had a bear of a time picking up stitches to finish a hemmed neckline and hemmed armholes. My problem? Getting the picked up stitches exactly even on each side. Now I can do it with ease by picking up all stitches and decreasing as necessary - perfect! Why didn't I think of that before.

4. Not everyone becomes an avid knitter, but, for those who do, the time inevitably arrives when they want to knit their own original designs. The Principles of Knitting is the definitive resource for designing your own knits without hiding the final product or having the neighborhood gather to giggle at your results. For example, consider the discussion on designing a sleeve cap (pp. 495-96 - available for you to read in the "look inside the book" section above). Here's a clear discussion on how to fit the sleeve cap so the results look professional rather than disastrous. Think about it. Shouldn't handmade knits look great (better than off-the-rack) as well as being heart-felt creations? This is the resource you need to make that happen.

5. There's a ton of information in this book that I may never get around to using, but that's ok. There's so much to do differently in the techniques I already use, that I will be busy from now on - and my results will be even better. But if I ever get bored . . .

CONS:

1. This is a HUGE volume, so it is understandable that certain cost-cutting efforts were applied to reduce the final size and expense. However, the paper used is light-weight, and the print sometimes shows through the back of the page, making it a bit difficult to read. I consider this book an important tool, just the same as my hard-wood needles, so I would have preferred a heavier paper even if it increased the cost of the book. After all, the cost of the best tools usually pays off in the best results!

2. A question: What's with the Kindle edition of this book costing 51% more than the print edition? How can that be reasonable? About the only advantage I can imagine is that you could receive instant delivery, but is that worth paying so much more?

OVERALL:

I pre-ordered this massive volume on September 1, 2011, and waited almost six months to read it. It was worth the wait. If I could own only two knitting books, this would be one of the two. The other? "Finishing School." With these two books, you'll have the answer to any "knotty" problem you might encounter. Knitters rejoice! This is the mother lode!

86 of 88 people found the following review helpful.
Highly Recommend
By Erika
The original edition of "The Principles of Knitting" had been the most useful and understandable knitting guide that I ever found. I checked it out of the library several times (when I lived in a town where the library had a copy). I've been wanting my own copy of the book for something like 15 years, but used copies have been *very* expensive. Now not only is this great book back in print, it's an updated 2nd edition.

If you haven't seen the first edition: What you should know is that it's a big, thorough reference book (check out the Amazon "Look Inside" preview, where you can see the table of contents) with clear instructions and good drawings and photographs (there are 900+ illustrations, mostly fairly small). The photographs are black-and-white, and the drawings are black-and-white or black-and-white with added detail in a third tone (rust). It doesn't have the stunning color pictures that a lot of knitting books have, but aside from having an experienced knitter show you a technique in person, it's the best knitting help I've found.

If you're familiar with the first edition, here's what's different: The author (as she tells in the introduction) rewrote and refined the content throughout the book and also added new material. The book is 100 pages longer than before. There's some show-through of the printing on the opposite sides of the pages---it's not especially distracting but it's not ideal. I don't have the first edition to compare it to, so I can't say whether the paper quality is actually worse.

The binding of my copy seems fine, by the way. (I noticed another reviewer said that theirs didn't appear to be very sturdy.)

I've never posted a review before, but I had to for this book because I think it's so outstanding.

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* Get Free Ebook The Forgotten Garden: A Novel, by Kate Morton

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From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The House at Riverton, a novel that takes the reader on an unforgettable journey through generations and across continents as two women try to uncover their family’s secret past

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-fi rst birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.

• Sales Rank: #8331 in Books
• Brand: SIMON & SCHUSTER
• Published on: 2010-02-16
• Released on: 2010-02-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.60" w x 5.31" l, 1.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

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• Great product!

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009: Like Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved classic The Secret Garden, Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children. As Morton draws you through a thicket of secrets that spans generations, her story could cross into fairy tale territory if her characters weren't clothed in such complex flesh, their judgment blurred by the heady stench of emotions (envy, lust, pride, love) that furtively flourished in the glasshouse of Edwardian society. While most ache for a spotless mind's eternal sunshine, the Authoress meets the past as "a cruel mistress with whom we must all learn to dance," and her stories gift children with this vital muscle memory. --Mari Malcolm

Read an excerpt and the reading group guide for The Forgotten Garden.

Amazon Exclusive: A Conversation with Author Kate Morton

Q: The Forgotten Garden has some marvelous parallels with Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, and Burnett even makes an appearance in your book as a guest at a garden party. Did her book inspire portions of your story?

A: The Secret Garden was one of my favourite books when I was a little girl. Along with stories like The Faraway Tree and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, it's one of many classic childhood tales in which children escape from the adult world to a place in which their imagination is allowed free rein. However, it wasn't my intention to reference The Secret Garden when I first started writing.

In fact, The Forgotten Garden (which was called The Authoress until the final draft!) began with a family story: when she was 21, my grandmother's father told her that she wasn't his biological child. Nana was so deeply affected by this knowledge that she told no one until she was a very old lady and finally confided in her three daughters. When I learned Nana's secret, I was struck by how fragile a person's sense of self is and knew that one day I would write a story about someone who experienced a similar life-changing confession.

When I began to write about Nell, I knew that her mystery was going to lead her to an English cottage, but the other details were hazy. It was while I was auditioning English locations for my book that I came across mention of the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. My interest was piqued, and I began reading everything I could find about this place: a grand country estate with astounding gardens that had been locked and forgotten after its gardening staff were killed during the first world war and the owners moved away.

When it was rediscovered in the late 20th century, nature had reclaimed the estate, but the bones of the garden lay deep beneath the overgrowth. This story really fired my imagination and I knew that I'd not only found my location--Cornwall--but that I would also need a forgotten garden in my story!

I was also eager to play with 19th-century gothic conventions in The Forgotten Garden. I adore books like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and I wanted a gloomy old house, wicked aunts, secretive servants, hidden identities, mysterious whisperings--the lot. But when my garden grew walls, I suddenly remembered The Secret Garden, and with my theme of fairy tales and storytellers and the vital role that such things play in a child's imagination, I couldn't resist introducing parallels (including a walk-on role for Frances Hodgson Burnett). It was a way of referencing my own childhood influences--Enid Blyton and the Famous Five get a couple of nods throughout, too!--and was a lot of fun.

Most helpful customer reviews

759 of 784 people found the following review helpful.
The Forgotten Garden: Another Blockbuster for Kate Morton
By Phyllis Staff
A four-year-old girl waits alone on a dock in Australia for parents who never come. Her only possession? A tiny white suitcase containing no information about who she is or how she came to be abandoned.

Nell is a foundling, and what a rare foundling she is. A stow-away on an ocean liner, she refuses to tell even so much as her name. Until in her 60s, over-protected by a loving foster father, she has no clue how she came to be alone on that dock. Hers is the mystery that unfolds in this long novel spanning more than a century, five generations, and two distant continents.

Enthusiastic fans of Kate Morton's first novel, "The House at Riverton," will thrill to her second, "The Forgotten Garden." Like her first, this is a novel whose female characters are finely and fully drawn, and whose males are wispy and insubstantial. How its women interact, how they love and hate one another, how their interplay moves through tragedy and redemption will provide hours of pleasure for her fans.

Morton's excellent pacing creates a page-turner that is hard to put down, although its length might give pause to those who suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. Morton tells her story not only through the actions of her characters but also through fairy tales that work on several levels and provide clues to the mystery's final solution. Many readers will have guessed the solution long before the end of the book. Nevertheless, Morton maintains reader interest throughout.

Overall, this is a highly satisfying read. It's fun to watch the author weave the lives of women into a rich tapestry of life and love, anger and betrayal. However, the novel is not without its weaknesses. First, as mentioned above, Morton's male characters are weak and insipid and never come to life. Second, the love interest at the end of the book does not mesh with the rest of the work. It is almost as though an editor said, "You'd better add a little love story here," so Morton did.

The book's flaws, while mildly unsettling, are not serious enough to spoil a great read. If you enjoy long stories about generations of women, you will love "The Forgotten Garden."

361 of 378 people found the following review helpful.
A fairy tale gone wrong
By Baking Enthusiast
I was a bit hesitant in picking up "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton. After my disappointment with "The House at Riverton," I wasn't sure if I was willing to invest more time. Pleased to say that the story hooked me from the get-go, and though the book is longer than I thought necessary, it was altogether an entertaining read.

At the heart of this big, fat tale (645 pages) is a mystery. In 1913, a dock master, Hugh, discovers a four-year-old girl who's been left alone on a wharf in Queensland, Australia after all passengers had disembarked from a boat that sailed from England. Taking pity on her, Hugh takes her home to his wife, Lil. In spite of Hugh's and Lil's efforts to find the girl's family, time passes and no one claims the tyke. Having hit her head while onboard the boat, the little girl couldn't even remember her own name and all she could recall was a woman she calls the Authoress who was supposed to sail with her. Hugh and Lil decide to keep her as their own and name her Nell.

In the present day, Nell's granddaughter, Cassandra, is grieving Nell's passing. As she goes through Nell's notebooks, she realizes that her grandmother had never stopped searching for her true parents. Cassie takes over the search, which leads her to England and to a small Cornish village, and finally, to a decrepit cottage and its walled garden...a garden that swallowed the secrets of the 1900s and buried within its grounds the fascinating and tragic story of the Mountrachets and the woman a child had called the Authoress.

A challenge to the reader will be the constant switching of perspective from past to present and in between, primarily the years of 1913, 1975 and 2005. It's a bit off-putting in the first few chapters but after awhile, it's no longer an encumbrance. Though the main story is Nell's parentage, the novel is dense with stories of the characters whose lives intersect and create the environment upon which Nell's birth and subsequent abandonment hinges. There are also many incidental details that don't necessarily impact the story but are included nevertheless to bring alive the era being depicted and add realism to the backstories. Included, too, are fairy tales by the Authoress that serve as allegories of the truths secreted by the doomed Mountrachet family, a family that "wanted things they shouldn't or couldn't have" and destroyed lives with their avarice, entitlements and perversions.

It can be a grueling read at close to 700 pages but the mystery itself kept me reading and speculating. Clues are parceled out in small doses and it takes a very long time, almost the end, before one can put together a clear picture of Nell's history. That's a good decision on the author's part as otherwise, a reader's interest would likely wane quickly. As Cassie puts it, "the closer we get, the more tangled the web becomes."

The characters are, for the most part, very interesting, though a bit on the melodramatic side, but it's the kind of melodrama that befits the Victorian era and the early 1900s. Of particular note is the emerging technology of x-ray in the mid-1890s, the careless use of which put into motion a series of tragic events that would reverberate for over 100 years.

It's an enthralling read and, with patience from a reader, delivers very satisfactory answers. Stories about foundlings, secrets and Victorian women have been done hundreds of times in various iterations and can get tiresome fast if the core story is weak. Glad to say that no such error is committed in "The Forgotten Garden." The first few chapters pulled me in very quickly and I found myself compulsively on the same quest for the truth. The mystery has sturdy legs that don't weaken for the novel's entire duration.

117 of 126 people found the following review helpful.
A favorite!
By Ellis Bell
The Forgotten Garden, the follow-up to The House at Riverton: A Novel (but by no means a sequel), is a muti-layered novel with complicated characters and a highly intriguing storyline. The story jumps back and forth in time, but rarely is the reader confused as to what's going on. I loved The House at Riverton, so as soon as I finished it, I went roight over and bought The Forgotten Garden from Amazon UK. Let me just say that I wasn't disappointed.

The book opens in 1913, when a young girl with no name is found on a quayside in Australia. She doesn't remember anything about herself, and all she carries with her is a white suitcase containing, among other personal items, a book of fairytales penned by a woman the girl calls the Authoress.

In 1975, the girl, now a woman called Nell, goes back to England, where she attempts to find answers to questions about her identity. Her travels lead her to Blackhurst Manor, delving deep into the Mountrachet family's secrets and purchasing a cottage on the Blackhurst property. But before she can solve the mystery of her past, Nell's flaky daughter Lesley shows up, dumping her granddaughter Cassandra on her doorstep--permanently.

In 2005, after Nell's death, Cassandra inherits the cottage and tries to answer the questions her grandmother raised. The stories of these two women are complemented by that of Eliza Makepeace, who grew up in the slums of London around the turn of the nineteenth century, and her cousin, the genteel Rose Mountrachet.

This is clearly a novel written by a woman, for women, about women; the male characters take a backseat to the female ones, sometimes becoming unlikeable. In fact, Linus Mountrachet is downright creepy, and Nathaniel West is a bit of a cad. The novel is punctuated here and there with some of Eliza's short stories, which provide wonderful little interludes, kind of like AS Byatt's Possession, in a way. Possession, mixed with a little bit of The Secret Garden. We're even introduced to Frances Hodgeson Burnett, suggesting that she might have received inspiration for The Secret Garden from Eliza and Rose's garden.

What I loved about this atmospheric, fairytale-like novel was that Morton tells the story of these different, but connected, women, but she doesn't give everything up right away. I tried to guess at the mystery many times, but ultimately my guesses were never correct. The characters are well developed, and although it takes a little while to get into the story, this is an excellent novel, filled with old houses and hidden gardens with secrets and surprises. It's also a novel about foreshadowing; even Cassandra's name suggests someone who can foretell the future. Aside from some too-fortuitous chances (for example, Eliza is rescued from poverty at the exact moment that she's about to be sent off to the workhouse), I found it really, really difficult to put this novel down, and only finished it reluctantly.

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