Product Description

Juggling the demands of her yarn shop and single-handedly raising a teenage daughter has made Georgia Walker grateful for her Friday Night Knitting Club. Her friends are happy to escape their lives too, even for just a few hours. But when Georgia's ex suddenly reappears, demanding a role in their daughter's life, her whole world is shattered.

Luckily, Georgia's friends are there, sharing their own tales of intimacy, heartbreak, and miracle making. And when the unthinkable happens, these women will discover that what they've created isn't just a knitting club: it's a sisterhood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #559832 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04
• Format: Large Print
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 510 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Between running her Manhattan yarn shop, Walker & Daughter, and raising her 12-year-old biracial daughter, Dakota, Georgia Walker has plenty on her plate in Jacobs's debut novel. But when Dakota's father reappears and a former friend contacts Georgia, Georgia's orderly existence begins to unravel. Her support system is her staff and the knitting club that meets at her store every Friday night, though each person has dramas of her own brewing. Jacobs surveys the knitters' histories, and the novel's pace crawls as the novel lurches between past and present, the latter largely occupied by munching on baked goods, sipping coffee and watching the knitters size each other up. Club members' troubles don't intersect so much as build on common themes of domestic woes and betrayal. It takes a while, but when Jacobs, who worked at Redbook and Working Woman, hits her storytelling stride, poignant twists propel the plot and help the pacing find a pleasant rhythm. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
Kate Jacobss novel about the communal aspects of knitting celebrates the craft, which is finding renewed life in a new generation. Georgia Walker is a single mother who runs yarn shop in uptown New York City. Several of her customers come together to bond in a weekly night of knitting, noshing, and conversation. Walkers 12-year-old daughter, Dakota, a budding culinary entrepreneur, keeps the knitting circle in noshes. Carrington MacDuffies reading make the storys first-person narrator sound detached from the story. The variety of characters and their joys and concerns never come to life. Overall, MacDuffie cannot overcome the superficialities of the story itself. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

From Booklist
Georgia Walker's entire life is wrapped up in running her knitting store, Walker and Daughter, and caring for her 12-year-old daughter, Dakota. With the help of Anita, a lively widow in her seventies, Georgia starts the Friday Night Knitting Club, which draws loyal customers and a few oddballs. Darwin Chiu, a feminist grad student, believes knitting is downright old-fashioned, but she's drawn to the club as her young marriage threatens to unravel. Lucie, 42, a television producer, is about to become a mother for the first time--without a man in her life. Brash book editor KC finds her career has stalled unexpectedly, while brilliant Peri works at Walker and Daughter by day and designs handbags at night. Georgia gets her own taste of upheaval when Dakota's father reappears, hoping for a second chance. The yarn picks up steam as it draws to a conclusion, and an unexpected tragedy makes it impossible to put down. Jacobs' winning first novel is bound to have appeal among book clubs. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable read
The Friday Night Knitting Club is a nice read. At times, it felt that the book dragged on just a bit, but it is such a relaxing and heartwarming story that I kept on reading and found that it picked up further into the story.

It actually reminded me of a New York version of a Maeve Binchy-type story.

The most 'chick-litiest' of chick-lit
I want to start off by saying that the third star for this novel was given simply out of admiration for keeping so many balls in the air. Ms Jacobs chose to tell a story with multiple character plotlines, and I know how hard this is. Keeping track of things, making sure everyone gets their due, 'seeing' everything along the way to the story's conclusion; a daunting task. However...

It's a 2-star book.

As I infer in the title for this review, it takes what is stereotypical for a chick-lit novel and pushes it all front-and-center. It deals with 'woman-centric' issues...but does it in a way that's really patronizing. It maintains a decidedly low-brow approach to the exposition, as if the reader either needs or prefers to have everything spelled out ('Tell, don't show!'), and even then, does it in an extraordinarily pedestrian way. Almost as if- Well, as if Hallmark Cards had commissioned it.

There is no deftness of touch. (In fact, it's ham-fisted most of the time.) There's little subtlety involved. (In fact, everything is in bright neon, billboard-huge.) And aside from getting everything in, getting all the necessary facts related, the author doesn't seem to have much to say. That is, she's lacking a clear voice. What voice there is, seems more typical of a high school writer wanting to declare world views. 'This Is How I See The World'.

In truth, there was a lovely novel in here. The premise was great. But it was beyond Ms Jacobs' abilities. What's displayed within the pages of 'The Friday Night Knitting Club' is talent relating to writing similar to that of a vocalist aspiring to be a singer. Many, many times, I found myself shaking my head at the lubberly way she expressed even the simplest aspects of story, or of character. It was, in the end, a triumph of will that I achieved a full reading of the book.

As I've expressed elsewhere, in other reviews, I really wonder at the editors' roles in all this. Seriously; this is the book version of the movie that people exit from muttering 'How did THAT ever get made...?'

COZY, WARM, AND FRIENDLY

A bit reminiscent of Ann Hood's The Knitting Circle we are again introduced to a group of women who meet to knit and find that they've stitched strong bonds of friendship. What raises Jacobs's debut novel above the average women-support-women tale is the author's finely crafted prose and a sterling reading by Carrington MacDuffie.

A recording artist and spoken word performer, MacDffie vitalizes a disparate cast of characters from Georgia Walker, a single mom and owner of a yarn ship to daughter, Dakota, to Darwin Chiu, a militant feminist, to shop staffer Peri, to Anita, Georgia's stalwart friend and helper, and more. Her narration ably reflects the different ages, backgrounds, and personalities involved.

The Friday Night Knitting Club is a cozy, warm read peopled with characters we'd like to know. It's easy to lose oneself in the story and feel very much a part of the group, as we hear: "Without ever putting up one sign or announcing the creation of a knitting club, these women began regularly appearing in the evenings and, well, loitering. Chatting with each other, talking to Anita, gathering about the large round table in the center of the room, picking up where they had left things the week before. And then, one Friday last fall, it became official. Well, sort of.

Lucie, a striking woman with short, sandy-colored hair, who favored tortoiseshell glasses over her big, blue eyes and colorful, funky outfits, was an occasional shopper at Walker and Daughter. She came in every few months and was always working on the same piece, a thick cable knit sweater--a man's garment. There were a lot of these types who came in to the store, folks whose knitting ambitions were out of line with either their ability or with whatever mysterious comings and goings kept them from sitting down and getting the job done. "

And so it began. All seems to go smoothly until the reappearance of Dakota's dad who wants to move back into Georgia's life, and unexpected events in the other women's lives.

Jacobs is a deft storyteller and along with the laughter and tears she has surprises in store. The Friday Night Knitting club is an affectionate, engaging story of female friendship and will soon be found on the big screen starring Julia Roberts.

Enjoy!
- Gail Cooke