"I read it early on and I got it early on. It’s…. still one of my favorite books. It shows how humans tend to forget the reason they wanted to do this life in the first place or why they had a revolution in the first place. [It’s] just as relevant today as it was when I read it as a 12-year-old. I never drank the Kool-Aid. I always looked for answers below the surface or hidden answers to life’s questions, so that book resonated, especially because it was a parable."

"As anyone who has ever picked up a pair of knitting needles can attest to, knitting is a laborious love. When a pair of socks can take weeks to knit, and a blanket months (or even years), there’s something slightly sacrilegious about a book of shorts about knitting. But somehow these writers capture the essence of hours spent stitching, without the expected verbose prose. The third story written by Andre Dubus III is a particular favorite of mine — capturing both the historical and personal legacy of knitting in a short heartfelt gem."

"On the surface the Odyssey is a hero’s book about journey and adventure, but just beneath the main storyline rests a feminist arc of subtly navigating a man’s world without sacrificing your ideals. For me, Penelope, Odysseus’s faithful wife, is my favorite character. A skilled manipulator, Penelope cunningly evades unwanted suitors by claiming to knit or weave (depending on the translation you read) a funeral shroud for her elderly Father-in-Law. She pledges that upon completion of the shroud, she will remarry, but as a stall tactic she secretly undoes her work at night."