Unraveled Wednesday

Joining Kat and friends for Unraveled Wednesday. I'm still working on Another Nervous Breakdown, but in an effort to avoid showing you the same slow-growing Hitchhiker photo for weeks on end, I'm going to show you my concurrent comfort knitting.

This is a Sockhead Cowl (ravelry link) in Wollmeise Blend, a lovely mix of merino and cashmere. This is my third one, and they've been spaced out enough that I've forgotten how much of a slog they can be. But this yarn feels delicious flowing through my fingers and I'd like to finish the ribbing and get it done, just in case I get a chance to wear it this winter. It would have felt good yesterday with wind chills in the 20s and 30 mph winds. Just another few inches of ribbing and I'll get my wish.

I've become a faithful, monogamous reader in the past week, and I anticipate this trend continuing until I finish reading my pile of Sarah Moss novels. I finished The Tidal Zone and as much as I enjoyed Summerwater and The Ghost Wall, The Tidal Zone was all I had hoped for and more. I don't usually do this, but I'm copying and pasting my review here in hopes that maybe others will be intrigued enough by her stunning prose and premise to give the book a try. 

"The Tidal Zone is my third Sarah Moss novel, and it was so good that I still want more. It's the story of Adam, a stay-at-home dad and his family. One day Adam receives a phone call that his 15-year-old daughter, Miriam, has collapsed at school, and things unfold from there. There are clear and poignant chapters about how things are going in the hospital, interspersed with the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral after World War II (because Adam is working on a project), and Adam's father telling his own story of his life in the 1960s. Things are not neatly tied up so this may not be a book for everyone, but I love Moss' language, intelligence, and extraordinary writing about the mundane and not-so-mundane. I have dog-eared so many pages that I know I will be re-reading The Tidal Zone at some point. But not until after I finish my next three books by Sarah Moss. Up next, Night Waking...

Although try this: if you could know what is going to happen, if you could know the lives and deaths of your partner and your kids and yourself, if you could know their loves and losses, triumphs and failures, sicknesses and last moments, would you? No. You think you want a story, you think you want an ending, but you don't. You want life. You want disorder and ignorance and uncertainty."

I am currently reading Night Waking, the first in a loose sort of trilogy, and just like my other Sarah Moss novels, this one is even better than the last. I've been reading it before I go to sleep, and I've dreamt about it on several occasions. It takes me right back to the sleepless early years of motherhood. The male protagonist, Giles, is a real a**hole and I've had to remind myself several times not to be angry at my husband because he is not Giles. Sarah Moss' writing is that good and immersive. 

What are you making, reading, and immersed in this week?