Unraveled, Week 45/2025

Hello, Wednesday! Time to link up with Kat and the Unravelers and share what I've been making and what I've been reading this week.

I didn't know what to do with myself with only one project on the needles (my sister-in-law's socks), so I pulled out that last skein of DK tweed from the multipack and the leftovers from my recent charity hat to knit another.

The pattern is Around & About by Lisa of Fibernymph Dye Works, which felt appropriate given that I'm using her yarn. I am knitting the largest size, so as to maximize my yarn usage, but I'm not sure if my scraps will hold out for the specified number of stripes. I had 10 g left, which is about 23 yards, but the pattern says I need about 30 yards. I am hoping that Lisa overestimated that number on purpose, but if not, I'll just make do with fewer stripes.

Speaking of the socks, I was making great progress on the first one and was almost ready to start the toe decreases when I pulled off more yarn and saw this:

Look, I get it, I know knots happen in the production of yarn occasionally and it's acceptable in the industry up to a point. But if the yarn is self-striping, is it really that hard to tie the knot in the right place in the striping sequence? Gah! I wound off until I got to the same point and rejoined the yarn, and it looks like I will have enough to complete the sock, but if I were not making shortie socks, this would have been a bigger problem.

I finished another four books this week -- in fact, I finished the first three of them all on Friday! (I was very close to the end of them all.)

The South was on this year's Booker Prize longlist, and it's set in Malaysia, an area with which I have no familiarity. The Lim family is taking a summer vacation at their family's farm, away from the city where they normally live. None of the family's three teenagers is particularly enthused about this, least of all Jay, the youngest, who discovers he is to share a room with Chuan, the teenaged son of the farm's caretaker. They soon form a bond, however, that is first one of friendship and then one romantic in nature. Meanwhile, it's clear that the farm is failing and will likely need to be sold, and Jack Lim is dealing with difficulties at his job that may complicate his family's life. All of this is set against a backdrop of climate change and the melting pot of races and nationalities that is Malaysia. I thought the writing was beautiful at times and made me think of Ocean Vuong. But the point of view shifts throughout the book, including (confusingly) between a first-person narrative and a close third person. I also didn't understand why sometimes the dialogue was in quotes and sometimes it wasn't, though perhaps a reader who isn't an editor might not even notice. I gave it 3 stars.

Next was a bit of fluff in the form of an audiobook that took me two days. Unless you are around my age or a bit younger, then you likely won't be familiar with the TV show One Tree Hill; if that's the case, all you really need to know is that it was a WB show from the early 2000s that was a sort of teenage soap opera. Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show is the memoir of one of the actors from the series. But rather than a tell-all about what went on behind the scenes of the show, this book tells how the author, in an effort to find community and meaning from a Bible study group, ended up in a controlling religious cult. This entertained me while I exercised, walked the dog, and cleaned the bathroom, but I wouldn't call it fine literature and wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless you're particularly interested in how people end up in these sorts of groups. The author also narrated the book and spoke so quickly that I had to turn down the speed! I gave it 3 stars.

Celestial Bodies was the winner of the 2019 Booker International Prize and is the next title a small group of us are discussing for our women in translation project this year. This novel is set in Oman and centers around three sisters, all of whom have a different approach to marriage. In shifting points of view that change each chapter, we explore their lives in widening circles that include their husbands, their parents, and others in the community and also learn more about the changes happening in Omani society. I found it really interesting to be immersed in a country and tradition entirely unknown to me, but that also meant that there were many terms I didn't know and references that meant nothing to me. I also found the shifting in perspective and time to be a bit confusing, particularly as no actual dates are given but the relative timeline has to be intuited by the context. I'm sure I will appreciate this book more after the group discussion, but for now I gave it 3 stars.

The last finish for the week was also the longest, at 600+ pages. The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a big, sweeping story that spans continents and, through the back stories of some characters, generations. The title characters are two 20-something Indians who both traveled to America to study and both found they were lonely there. Back at home, their families, who know each other tangentially, decide to arrange an introduction in the hope that, perhaps, they will be a match. But nothing is ever that simple, not least because Sonia and Sunny are both deep in the process of trying to figure out who they are and what they are meant to do with their lives. There are some truly bizarre characters, some truly comic characters, and some truly tragic characters. There is magic realism and mysticism and perhaps even supernatural elements. There's a lot going on here, so it's not surprising that it takes so many pages. It took me a while to read, but it didn't drag; I put it aside when a library hold came in, for instance, and there were days when work was busy and I didn't get to read much. I still feel that there's a lot I just didn't get from this book, but that's okay -- I still enjoyed it. I gave it 4 stars.

I had a brief period of time after finishing Sonia and Sunny when I was reading zero books (basically overnight), but I quickly rectified that. I've been listening to The Burgess Boys (which I missed somehow when I was reading a lot of Elizabeth Strout several years back). On paper, I am reading a YA novel that I was a bit obsessed with as a young teen called The Language of Goldfish. And just yesterday I started Anna Quindlen's forthcoming More than Enough.

What are you making and reading this week?