The Power of Knitting
Stitching Together Our Lives in a Fractured World
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Narrated by:
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Elizabeth Wiley
About this listen
Purl and stitch: empowering, healing, and reconnecting us to each other and ourselves
In a fractured world plagued by anxiety and loneliness, knitting is coming to the rescue of people from all walks of life. Economist and lifelong knitter Loretta Napoleoni unveils the hidden power of the purl and stitch mantra: an essential tool for the survival of our species, a means for women to influence history, a soothing activity to calm us, and a powerful metaphor of life.
This book is a voyage through our history following the yarn of social, economic, and political changes - from ancient Egypt and Peru to modern Mongolia, from the spinning bees of the American Revolution to the knitting spies of World War II, and from the hippies' rejection of consumerism to yarnbombing protests against climate change. For the author it is also a personal journey of discovery and salvation, drawing on the wisdom her grandmother passed along as they knit together.
Revealing recent discoveries in neuroscience, The Power of Knitting offers proof of the healing powers of knitting on our bodies and minds. Breaking through societal barriers, even nursing broken hearts, and helping to advance cutting-edge science, knitting is still a valuable instrument for navigating our daily lives.
As a bonus, the book includes patterns for 10 simple yet iconic projects that reflect the creative, empowering spirit of knitting, with complete instructions.
This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing knitting patterns from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2020 Loretta Napoleoni (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The Years is a personal narrative of the period of 1941 to 2006 told through the lens of memory, impressions past and present - even projections into the future - photos, books, songs, radio, television, and decades of advertising and headlines, contrasted with intimate conflicts and written notes from six decades of diaries. Local dialect, words of the time, slogans, brands, and names for ever-proliferating objects are given a voice here. The voice we recognize as the author's continually dissolves and re-emerges.
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Mixed Feelings
- By Elin VanD on 05-10-20
By: Annie Ernaux
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The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
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At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
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Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
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1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows
- A Memoir
- By: Ai Weiwei, Allan H. Barr - translator
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Once a close associate of Mao Zedong and the nation’s most celebrated poet, Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as “Little Siberia,” where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labor cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America, where he befriended Allen Ginsberg and was inspired by Andy Warhol and the artworks of Marcel Duchamp.
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This book changed my life
- By Johnny Nopolis on 08-16-22
By: Ai Weiwei, and others
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Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All
- A New Zealand Story
- By: Christina Thompson
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson's marriage to a Maori man.
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a beautiful story
- By Pumpkin99 on 12-24-22
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The Sum of Our Days
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Blair Brown, Isabel Allende
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and as full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul while sharing her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory - and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a new kind of family.
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She does not disappoint
- By ChiChi's Rule on 06-01-22
By: Isabel Allende
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Stranger in the Shogun's City
- A Japanese Woman and Her World
- By: Amy Stanley
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 10 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The daughter of a Buddhist priest, Tsuneno was born in a rural Japanese village and was expected to live a traditional life much like her mother’s. But after three divorces - and a temperament much too strong-willed for her family’s approval - she ran away to make a life for herself in one of the largest cities in the world: Edo, a bustling metropolis at its peak. With Tsuneno as our guide, we experience the drama and excitement of Edo just prior to the arrival of American Commodore Perry’s fleet, which transformed Japan.
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Lovely microhistory
- By JS on 07-26-21
By: Amy Stanley
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Girl Gurl Grrrl
- On Womanhood and Belonging in the Age of Black Girl Magic
- By: Kenya Hunt
- Narrated by: Kenya Hunt, Ebele Okobi, Jessica Horn, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Black women have never been more visible or more publicly celebrated. But for every milestone, every magazine cover, every new face elected to public office, the reality of everyday life for black women remains a complex, conflicted, contradiction-laden experience. An American journalist who has been living in London for a decade, Kenya Hunt has made a career of distilling moments, movements, and cultural moods into words. Her work takes the difficult and the indefinable and makes it accessible; it is razor sharp cultural observation threaded through evocative and relatable stories.
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Inspired
- By Amazon Customer on 01-29-21
By: Kenya Hunt
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After the Last Border
- Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America
- By: Jessica Goudeau
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America's identity for centuries - yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the 21st-century American dream, having won the "golden ticket" to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.
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Great Content. Odd Structure.
- By Susan Stillings on 02-10-21
By: Jessica Goudeau
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Remembering Shanghai
- A Memoir of Socialites, Scholars and Scoundrels
- By: Isabel Sun Chao, Claire Chao
- Narrated by: Rachel Yong, Claire Chao, Isabel Sun Chao
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Meticulously researched, Remembering Shanghai follows five generations, from vibrant Shanghai to the bright lights of Hong Kong. By turns harrowing and heartwarming, this vivid memoir explores identity and loss against the epic backdrop of a country in turmoil.
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touching stories of resilience and family
- By Rodger on 01-17-21
By: Isabel Sun Chao, and others
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Women's Work
- The First 20,000 Years: Women, Cloth, and Society in Early Times
- By: Elizabeth Wayland Barber
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.
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Respectful treatment of the archeological record.
- By fiberflair on 02-23-21
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House of Glass
- The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family
- By: Hadley Freeman
- Narrated by: Hadley Freeman
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Hadley Freeman knew her grandmother, Sara, lived in France just as Hitler started to gain power, but rarely did anyone in her family talk about it. Long after her grandmother’s death, she found a shoebox tucked in the closet containing photographs of her grandmother with a mysterious stranger, a cryptic telegram from the Red Cross, and a drawing signed by Picasso. This discovery sent Freeman on a decade-long quest to uncover the significance of these keepsakes, taking her from Picasso’s archives in Paris to a secret room in a farmhouse in Auvergne to Long Island to Auschwitz.
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Performance
- By Derek on 08-30-22
By: Hadley Freeman
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The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit
- My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
- By: Lucette Lagnado
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado recreates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years before Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power. With Nasser’s nationalization of Egyptian industry, her father, Leon, a boulevardier who conducted business in his white sharkskin suit, loses everything and departs with the family for any land that will take them. The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxtaposed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.
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A Touching Memoir of a Jewish Family in Egypt
- By Brustar on 06-10-20
By: Lucette Lagnado
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Pearl Buck in China
- Journey to The Good Earth
- By: Hilary Spurling
- Narrated by: Hilary Spurling
- Length: 9 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of the much honored two-volume biography of Henri Matisse unearths the life and work of the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Pearl Buck, whose novels in the 1930's and 40's were the first written for a Western audience to describe ordinary life in the still secret China of the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Very good
- By M. Brandman on 06-15-10
By: Hilary Spurling
What listeners say about The Power of Knitting
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Lisa Belle
- 01-25-21
Lovely book - history and personal story both
I’m a perennial beginner knitter and really loved this book. The scope of the history and culture of knitting is tremendous and is beautifully paired with the intimacy of the author’s personal journey. It was a very presently perfect book for inspiration, both in knitting and living, Winter 2021 edition. I have ordered a hard copy so I can share this uplifting, cool book in my neighborhood exchange.
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- Chiara
- 01-31-21
Disappointing… Presents a skewed view of the western feminist movement
From the “click bait “trailer offered by Audible, I believed this book was going to be a more scholarly look at the history of fiber arts. Instead, the author presents a long
account of her relationship to knitting — sprinkled with historical information.
The author presents a very binary view of the fiber arts for modern day women: either you buy into Women’s Lib and don’t knit versus you choose to knit, with the “permission”of the Women’s Movement. For the author to suggest that 21st century women can choose fiber arts for our own enjoyment, only because of some unspoken “permission” from people like Betty Friedan is absurd!
I will be 60 years old in two days. I grew up with my Italian grandmother teaching me to knit; she was illiterate and barely spoke English while living in the United States. She had raised three sons to become surgeons and worked more than full-time as a seamstress in a factory. She was the quintessential Maternal Feminist!
Just like she was a role model for my father and uncles to climb out of the Italian ghetto in New York State, my grandmother also spurred me forward to become a professional. Because of her maternal feminism, I became a physician, mother and homemaker.But this came at a huge price: I simply could not work 60 hours a week as a doctor and raise my children well at the same time. It is simply not possible.
I have been a knitter since before I could read. My 90 year old mother and my daughters continue to knit avidly. We knit,not to make a political statement or for personal vendetta. Rather, we knit for the love of the fiber arts!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Victoria Overstreet
- 05-09-21
A must listen to for new Knitters
the story is told from an autobiographical standpoint telling the history of knitting, it's economical, psychological and environmental impacts amid stories from her own personal experiences with knitting and fellow Knitters and stories they told. it's very well written even if it is a bit choppy at points. I finished about 4 inches of the baby blanket I'm working on knitting listening to the narrators voice. I think it's perfect for the story. if you're a knitter (especially a self taught new knitter like me) listening to the wisdoms and story's from men and women across time will make you love it even more.
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- Karen
- 09-01-22
Enjoyable, Interesting and encouraging
I especially loved the information regarding the role knitting has played throughout history. Some information that she provided was not new, but she expanded on it which was nice. She challenged my thinking on a few points and supported my thoughts about my knitting desires, goals, and enjoyment. I found myself thinking about a few key people for whom knitting could be beneficial for their health.
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- C. Zalek
- 08-15-22
suprisingly 'powerful'!
Wylie is a superb narrator and the book offers excellent information even to a seasoned knitter.
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- Benan Ozkaynak
- 07-09-23
Heartwarming and insightful
As a knitter, I very much enjoyed listening to this book and knitting along. I had also learned my first stitches from my grandma, then put it aside for decades.
And thanks to an elderly friend, knitting has come back to visit me during a very stressful time in my life. I have been knitting since then and most of the time it is the process, not the product. When I knit for my grandkids, I feel I make a connection between them and my grandma.
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- Charcoal
- 07-01-24
Life Experience in Knitting
This book ok was much more enjoyable than I thought. The author was very down to earth and it was never muddled with too much information.
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- Emily Jelly
- 04-10-21
Rich white lady complains about being less rich.
Gets a lot of knitting terms wrong, the author complains about being poor but goes on round the world trip while being "poor". I don't mind an author talking about how knitting helped them through a tough time but constantly complaining about how she has no money while she writes from her lake house and then goes on a round the world trip seems pretty tone deaf in 2020. It also perpetuates that knitting is for rich white women. Couldn't finish because I got so annoyed with the authors total lack of recognition of her privilege. The narrator isn't my favorite either, for some reason her "Italian" accent sounds Eastern European.
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2 people found this helpful
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- alison
- 02-26-22
hard to relate to
it is hard to relate to the struggles of the privileged woman in this book. "financial ruin" of someone who buys a world-round plane ticket and sells two houses in two countries isn't someone that share my knitting journey.
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