Some Nonfiction I've Read Recently

What I've been reading frantically, and reviewing here, is of course that virtual ton of fiction e-books that came in during the Booktober Blitz. Y'know, "Booktober Blitz" was an intentional misnomer. It implied that this bombardment of books was meant to last one month. The participants clearly have no such intention; I'm still getting over 100 e-mails, most containing offers of another dozen or so free e-books, most of them genre fiction, every single day. This is why it's very likely that if you've been trying to communicate with me, I've not found your e-mail yet. It's dead easy for e-mails to get lost in my in-box these days. Keep trying, is all I can say.

Nevertheless I've squeezed in time to reread three nonfiction books lately...well, one while knitting my way through all those e-books, and two during a power outage...

The Country Diary Book of Knitting by Annette Mitchell

This book was part of a 1980s fad. (It reflects one aspect of Eighties Sweaters that I didn't get around to in my series of posts about Eighties Sweaters: the more fashion-conscious the designer was, the bulkier the sweaters. 1980s fashion was not flattering to normal-shaped women at all, but bulky sweaters fitted into it in a special way. The top-heavy "peg" look Diana Spencer wore so much better than other people--padded shoulders, quilted coats and jackets, bulky sweaters, horizontal stripes across the shoulders sometimes offset by vertical or diagonal stripes below, those dowdy straight-cut skirts and instant-fat-look pleated trousers--was least unflattering in the form of a bulky sweater, jacket, or coat that covered the little puff-out pleats around the waist and showed either thin legs below a skirt, or thin legs in trousers that fitted like a second skin from the knees down. So even popcorn stitch--all over, not only for an accent on a shoulder or collar--and blackberry stitch were used, in sweaters made with fairly bulky yarns. The bogus Edwardian look in the soft-focus photos in this pattern book mandated skirts for all women, and hurrah, they weren't boxy, but they were being marketed to Eighties women who would wear those puffy-top sweaters with tight-legged, waist-pleated jeans...

Apart from that "fashion" influence the other patterns are still wearable and, ahead of her time, Mitchell included several patterns for things that weren't sweaters. Lots of matching hats, a few bags, even some toys were included along with about eighty Eighties sweater patterns. This was one big coffee-table knitting book that delivered the buyer's money's worth. Mitchell's guiding principle seems to have been "modernize traditional English patterns, most of which were traditional for doilies not sweaters, by knitting them in sweaters that may not be super-bulky but are certainly thicker than traditional sweaters were," because traditional sweaters were underwear while Eighties sweaters were alternatives to overcoats. Several sweaters are designed with more wearable medium-weight yarn and not intended to make the wearer look top-heavy.

Age and Guile (Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut) by P.J. O'Rourke

This is one of the late great satirist's books with which I'm not yet ready to part. When I am, I'll post a review here.

The Virgin of Bennington by Kathleen Norris

I've reviewed this one here. It's not, as might have been hoped, a memoir about staying a virgin at a hip and swinging school in the 1960s. Nor is it, as others might have hoped, a memoir about the author's loss of virginity at the said school, although that is mentioned. It is primarily a memoir about the author's first career-type job working for an unforgettable boss on a job that deserves to be carried on. If that's the kind of memoir you want to read, you'll love it.

Other reviewers' nonfiction reading lists, and mini-reviews, at https://www.longandshortreviews.com/miscellaneous-musings/wednesday-weekly-blogging-challenge-for-march-6-2024/ ,