Books about knitting?

[jackandahat]

What are your favourite books about knitting? Not pattern books, but books talking about knitting - things like Yarn Harlot's books or It's My Party And I'll Knit If I Want To.

What do you like about them?

Any you'd say to avoid? (I know some of that is going to be personal taste, but I'm interested to know why.)

Comments

I've only invested in one book

[jazzypom]

Because her blog is so comprehensive and vibrant, I found that reading the book was a bit of a let down. She pretty much xerox'ed her blog word for word in the book except for the sex part and that wasn't enough for me to feel as if I'd want to buy a second book.

But, she's a damned good writer, and if she does any fiction, I'm there, but for non fiction, I'm just going to read her blog, you know? I tend to prefer knit blogs to knit books anyway.

Re: I've only invested in one book

[bedlamsbard]

I have both her books and while I actually haven't reread them in a while, I know that one reason I shelled out money for the second one was that I liked her enough (from her blog) to want to support her by buying the book.

Someday I will actually get around to getting at least one of the Yarn Harlot's books. (I also prefer blogs, since it's more likely I'll actually read them given that most of my reading time is taken up by schoolwork.)

I have one yarn harlot book

[jazzypom]

And it's this one. I tend to find that her other books tend to veer either too mystery magical (she calls non knitters 'muggles' and she's had a book dedicated to thoughts about knitting with pithy verse) or too 'watch me be funny' but the knitting rules is a good balance and in addition to that, she shares wisdom re: knitting pi shawls, socks, et al to the point where I'll just pick up the book just to read the odd chapter or five.

Re: I have one yarn harlot book

[jackandahat]

*nods* This is the kind of thing I mean with personal taste - I do like the essay books, but it is a very particular style. I'm less fond of the most recent one because it's got several stories retold straight from the blog, and a few are not knitting related at all - husband/kid type stuff.

Knitting Rules I really like for keeping to check up on stuff - when I'm having my "Ack, am I doing this wrong?" moments, it's handy.