“Engaging . . . tangled stories of family relationships, expectations and traditions . . . compelling, regardless of the reader’s experience with the craft.”—Portland Press Herald In Knitting Pearls, two dozen writers write about the transformative and healing powers of knitting. Lily King remembers the year her family lived in Italy, and a knitted hat that helped her daughter adjust to her new home. Laura Lippman explores how converting to Judaism changed not only Christmas but also her mother’s gift of a knitted stocking. Jodi Picoult remembers her grandmother and how through knitting she felt that everlasting love. And Bill Roorbach remembers his freshman year in college when knitting soothed his broken heart and helped him fall in love again. Other contributors include Steve Almond, Ann Leary, Christina Baker Kline, Lee Woodruff, and knitting rock stars Jared Flood of Brooklyn Tweed and the Yarn Whisperer, Clara Parks. With knitting patterns from renowned stores such as Purl Soho, Hill Country Weavers, and Churchmouse Yarns, Knitting Pearls is by turns delightful and heartbreaking, joyous and wise. These personal stories by award-winning writers celebrate the moments of loss and love intertwined in the rhythm, ritual, and pleasure of knitting.

The author of Yarn Harlot returns with more hilarious personal stories about all the ups and downs of being a knitter. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (a.k.a. the Yarn Harlot) returns to pen another hilarious, insightful, and poignant collection of essays surrounding her favorite topics: knitting, knitters, and what happens when you get those two things anywhere near ordinary people. Free-Range Knitters shares stories of knitting horrors and triumphs and knitting successes and defeats, but, mostly, it shares stories about the human condition that ring true for everyone—especially if you have to have a rather large amount of yarn in your house. Praise for Yarn Harlot “Stephanie Pearl-McPhee turns both typical and unique knitting experiences into very funny and articulate prose.” —Meg Swansen, Schoolhouse Press “I laughed until my stitches fell helplessly from my needles!” —Lucy Neatby, author of Cool Socks Warm Feet “A sort of David Sedaris-like take on knitting—laugh-out-loud funny most of the time and poignantly reflective when it’s not cracking you up.” —Library Journal

This collection of essays from over twenty different authors, including Elizabeth Berg, Ann Patchett, Andre Dubus III and Sue Grafton, describes their passion for knitting, recalling their triumphs and disasters in their craft projects and lives. 30,000 first printing.

"Filled with love, hope, and longing, this is a novel for readers of all ages." - Holly Goldberg Sloan Bestselling author Ann Hood crafts a funny, heartfelt story of a girl growing up in the heart of Beatlemania. The year is 1966. The Vietnam War rages overseas, the Beatles have catapulted into stardom, and twelve-year-old Rhode Island native Trudy Mixer is not thrilled with life. Her best friend, Michelle, has decided to become a cheerleader, everyone at school is now calling her Gertrude (her hated real name), and the gem of her middle school career, the Beatles fan club, has dwindled down to only three other members--the least popular kids at school. And at home, her workaholic father has become even more distant. Determined to regain her social status and prove herself to her father, Trudy looks toward the biggest thing happening worldwide: the Beatles. She is set on seeing them in Boston during their final world tour--and meeting her beloved Paul McCartney. So on a hot August day, unknown to their families, Trudy and crew set off on their journey, each of them with soaring hopes for what lies ahead. In her signature prose, Hood crafts an extraordinary story of growing up, making unexpected connections, and following your dreams even as the world in front of you--and the world at large--is changing too fast.

An unlikely duo ventures through France and Italy to solve the mystery of a child’s fate in this moving, page-turning novel from “a gifted storyteller” (People). For decades, Nick Burns has been haunted by a decision he made as a young soldier in World War I, when a French artist he’d befriended thrust both her paintings and her baby into his hands—and disappeared. In 1974, with only months left to live, Nick enlists Jenny, a college dropout desperate for adventure, to help him unravel the mystery. The journey leads them from Paris galleries and provincial towns to a surprising place: the Museum of Tears, the life’s work of a lonely Italian craftsman. Determined to find the baby and the artist, hopeless romantic Jenny and curmudgeonly Nick must reckon with regret, betrayal, and the lives they’ve left behind. With characteristic warmth and verve, Ann Hood captures a world of possibility and romance through the eyes of a young woman learning to claim her place in it. The Stolen Child is an engaging, timeless novel of secrets, love lost and found, and the nature of forgiveness.

An entertaining and fascinating memoir of “gifted storyteller” (People) Ann Hood’s adventurous years as a TWA flight attendant. In 1978, in the tailwind of the golden age of air travel, flight attendants were the epitome of glamor and sophistication. Fresh out of college and hungry to experience the world—and maybe, one day, write about it—Ann Hood joined their ranks. After a grueling job search, Hood survived TWA’s rigorous Breech Training Academy and learned to evacuate seven kinds of aircraft, deliver a baby, mix proper cocktails, administer oxygen, and stay calm no matter what the situation. In the air, Hood found both the adventure she’d dreamt of and the unexpected realities of life on the job. She carved chateaubriand in the first-class cabin and dined in front of the pyramids in Cairo, fended off passengers’ advances and found romance on layovers in London and Lisbon, and walked more than a million miles in high heels. She flew through the start of deregulation, an oil crisis, massive furloughs, and a labor strike. As the airline industry changed around her, Hood began to write—even drafting snatches of her first novel from the jump-seat. She reveals how the job empowered her, despite its roots in sexist standards. Packed with funny, moving, and shocking stories of life as a flight attendant, Fly Girl captures the nostalgia and magic of air travel at its height, and the thrill that remains with every takeoff.

In this follow-up to "The Beach Street Knitting Society & Yarn Club," McNeil picks right up with small-town intrigue, packed lunches, and the joys of knitting--not to mention romance.