The Knitting Circle

I have been interested in knitting for about a year and I have a life long passion for books, so on Friday afternoon I googled "knit lit" to see if there were any fiction books that had knitting as a theme.  Was I ever pleasantly suprised.  I listed all of these books in my Moleskine and then visited the online catalogue of my local library to see if they had any of these treasures on their shelves.  One of the books that I checked out wasThe Knitting Circle by Ann Hood.  It was fantastic and I could not put the book down.  The story centered around a local knitting group that was populated by knitters who were all too familiar with grief, disappointment, and tragedy.  The protagonist is Mary Baxter who loses her 5-year old daughter to meningitis.  To help her cope with her loss, Mary's mother suggests that she join a local knitting group that meet's each Wednesday evening at Big Alice's Sit and Knit, the local yearn shop.  Through her association with the group each week, Mary gets to know the other knitters and the tragedies that have touched each of their lives.  I kept reading all weekend because I desired to learn the life stories of Alice, Scarlet, Lulu, Beth, Harriet, and Ellen.  I savored each page of the book and am looking at exploring other books by Ann Hood.