COMFORT READING

Today I discovered a Canadian-born writer Kate Jacobs. She comes from Hope, B.C. and now lives in the USA making her name as a writer. These 2 books have gone from hardback to paperback to translations. A movie is to be made from the first one.

Her website is here . There seems to be a buzz about her books which perhaps is because they are meeting a cultural need for something to read that is 'comforting' when all around is 'discomforting'. At least for 50% of the population, i.e. doesn't look like a man's book here. Must check these out for myself! While not particularly in need of comforting I quite like her descriptive style - see below.

Except from the beginning: "The hours of [the New York knitting shop] Walker and Daughter: Knitters were clearly displayed in multicolored letters on a white sandwich board placed just so at the top of the stair landing.... Slowly she would walk around the shop, running her hands lightly over the piles of yarn that were meticulously sorted by color—from lime to Kelly green, rust to strawberry, cobalt to Wedgwood blue, sunburst to amber, and rows and rows of grays and creams and blacks and whites. The yarn went from exquisitely plush and smooth to itchy and nubbly and all of it was hers."

Excerpt from the beginning: "Gus Simpson adored birthday cake. Chocolate, coconut, lemon, strawberry, vanilla–she had a particular fondness for the classics. Even though she experimented with new flavors and frostings, drizzling with syrups and artfully arranging hibiscus petals, Gus more often took the retro route with piped-on flowers or a flash of candy sprinkles across the iced top. Because birthday cake was really about nostalgia, she knew, about reaching in and using the senses to remember one perfect childhood moment .... one sweet slice fed the spirit as much as the stomach."