Broken Needles and Broken Dreams

School started this past week which means both the knitting and the reading slowed down to a crawl. I did get a decent amount of knitting done on my Harvest Bag test knit for Carmen of A Simple Homestead:

A set of Knitters Pride wooden circular needles were sacrificed in the making of this bag. A few summers ago I knit a blanket for my daughter out of this yarn also held double, and while that needle did not break, it was tested to its limits during the knitting of that blanket.

This Gotland yarn is rustic, aran weight, and not very pliable but (I think) perfect for this bag. It's practically waterproof and very hard wearing, so I expect to take this bag everywhere this fall including Rhinebeck. Just imagine all the purchases I can bring home in that roomy tote!

In book news, I'm reading Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney. I mentioned his first book, Bright Lights, Big City, in my last post and recently listened to an interview and reading by the author on Fresh Air. Imagine the aging creative class still behaving badly in Manhattan - in fact, I probably know a few of these people. Although this book takes place roughly a decade ago, before and during the great 21st century recession, and what was trendy then may have morphed into 5 new new places by now (I do love the references to lunches at Balthazar, the stalwart of downtown upscale bistros), but it's all in good fun.

I post what I'm reading on the bulletin board outside my classroom each week.

Parts of the novel move back in time to the pre-Giuliani days when Manhattan was more Detroit than Disney World, the characters were young, and hair was big. This highlights how far each character strayed from his or her dreams over the past 20+ years along with the compromises they've made. This book is just as insightful as City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg but way less of a commitment (the latter book weighs in at almost 1000 pages). If you like books about a certain type of New Yorker living in certain parts of New York, then give this book a try. If nothing else, the opening paragraph so nakedly describes how so many of us in the suburbs yearned to trade pages and punches with famous authors that if you carried your copy of The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, or the Bell Jar around with you in high school or college until the pages fell out, you will love this book.