Unraveled Wednesday: 11/19/25

I always look forward to Wednesdays, but after reading Kat's incredibly sad news yesterday, things are different. I'm still going to write about Justin's bigfoot socks and some books I read, but mainly I'm thinking about Kat, her son and daughter-in-law and wishing I had something more to offer than thoughts and prayers. But that's all I can do, so I will be thinking about the whole family, every day for a long time.

So I tried the darning egg to graft the toes on the socks, but I don't think it's the tool for me (for that job anyway). Maybe because it's new, I felt clumsy using it. I did one sock with the egg and the other one without it, and I think the one I did without looks slightly better. I will try to actually darn some threadbare sock heels with it at some point, but since I usually decrease my socks down to 12 stitches at the toe, grafting isn't really that big of a deal. I just need to put my head down and get on with it. 

 

  

So here are Justin's sock in all of their bigfooted glory.

 

I'll be starting on his slippers soon, but first I'm going to toss the stash and look for some Hitchhiker yarn. I hope I remember how to knit one! :-) 

I had another good reading week and finished two books. The Heart-Shaped Tin is a warm, contemplative blend of memoir and cultural history, and Bee Wilson shows her gift for uncovering the emotional lives of everyday objects and the people attached to them. The book begins with a quietly devastating moment: several months after Wilson’s husband abruptly walked away from their marriage, she stumbled upon the heart-shaped tin she had used to bake their wedding cake twenty-three years earlier. That discovery becomes the emotional spark for a book that manages to balance a scholar’s curiosity with a memoirist’s vulnerability, offering a reading experience that is both intellectual and profoundly heartfelt.

The author moves gracefully between her own post-marriage reflections and the stories of others whose wooden spoons, saltshakers, toast racks, and tongs become touchstones for grief, comfort, creativity, and connection. Some of the most memorable sections are the deep dives into objects with long histories: the 5,000-year-old Ecuadorian chocolate vessel, the stoneware inscribed with defiant poems by an enslaved potter, the ceremonial tools, the heirlooms passed down through families. These moments broaden the book’s scope beyond personal storytelling and remind the reader just how universal these attachments are.

This was four stars for me, but what kept this from being a five-star read for me is also part of its charm: the book meanders. While Wilson’s writing is consistently sharp and lovely, the structure can feel a bit diffuse, and some chapters linger longer than they need to. Still, the overall effect is soothing, curious, and unexpectedly moving.

If you enjoy reflective nonfiction, especially books that blend history, anthropology, and personal narrative, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a rewarding, empathetic read. The author has written a wide-ranging exploration of how kitchen tools hold memory, identity, and sometimes even a kind of quiet magic. It’s a reminder that the mundane objects we reach for every day often hold our most intimate stories.

Before I Forget is that rare novel that manages to be both warmly funny and quietly devastating, often in the same paragraph. Tory Henwood Hoen follows Cricket Campbell, stuck in neutral, grieving an old tragedy, and now reeling from her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, as she abandons her running-away city life and returns to the family’s Adirondack lake house to care for her father Arthur. What unfolds is a late coming-of-age story that feels sharply contemporary yet deeply timeless.

Hoen writes beautifully about the disorientation of early adulthood, the slippery nature of memory, and the uneasy push-pull of family history. Cricket’s narration is wry and self-aware, but it’s her vulnerability that makes the novel so affecting. As she settles back into life at Catwood Pond, she has to confront the versions of herself she’s been avoiding and the ways grief quietly calcifies into habit.

Arthur, meanwhile, is a revelation. His Alzheimer’s is rendered with compassion and nuance, and the novel’s magical-realist twist, his growing ability to predict the future, is handled with surprising tenderness. Rather than feeling gimmicky, it becomes a thoughtful metaphor: as his past recedes, the future sharpens, and father and daughter meet each other in a liminal, often luminous space.

I loved how Hoen ties the emotional arc to place. The Adirondacks are drawn with crisp, lived-in detail, and the lake house and Catwood Pond become a site of both rupture and repair. Cricket’s slow reclaiming of memory, her own and her father’s, feels earned, moving, and often unexpectedly hopeful.

A funny, heartfelt, and insightfully crafted novel about what it takes to move forward when the past refuses to stay put. Four and a half stars rounded up. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on December 2, 2025. This was a good one, but thankfully, you won't have a long wait before publication day. There is also a Goodreads giveaway if you are interested. 

What are you making and reading this week?