Preservation of crafting, preservation of a way of life of Grand Manan Island, beautiful writing from a poet. A mesmerizing read, must be read to be appreciated.

This book is very hard to categorize. I certainly learned a lot about fashion, fishing, and various dresses; the author is a quality writer. But she writes so indiscriminately I had a hard time staying focused. I'm sure to Deming everything she covers in this book relates to a theme that is central to her family's story, but there is so much ambiguity about her family, and so much detail afforded to so very many disparate topics, settings and ideas, that I found this to be a challenging read. I wanted to understand the mysteries of her mother and her mother's mother's strained relationship, and of her grandmother's unmarked grave in Valhalla; I wanted to hear what her work as a para-professional sex educator consisted of, but Deming didn't deliver.

If the subtitle On Fashion, Fishermen, and the Sardine Dress were expanded to include My Matrilineage, Porcelain, Grand Manan Island, Camels, Gentrification, Carmen, Emotional Contradiction, Empress Eugénie, Women's Work, Periwinkles, Makers, Cormorants, the Paris Attacks, Buffon, Moral Ugliness, and Babbage's Calculator, it still wouldn't cover the half of it.

This book was deeply interesting. It combines fashion and a herring fishery, two topics that rarely intersect. The author examines her family history, attempting to backtrack her grandmother's life. Decades of family discord have left her with more questions than answers, so she sets out on a Transatlantic quest to find her roots. Somewhere between official records and family lore is the truth, and getting there isn't always easy.

This was not what I was expecting. When I went in I was expecting a linear look at both the fish trade and fashion/clothing trade. This was a bit more jumbled than that. I feel like, in the way it is presented, it could have been three separate books easily. The writing was beautiful and I didn't know this author at all before "A Woven World" but I could tell she was a poet. I did enjoy my time reading this but it was just a bit too random feeling at times. You'll be talking about her great grandmother and Empress Eugenie and then you are in Iceland learning about the volcano and then you are talking about herring and then you are watching her make a dress for prom and now we're in a plane over the fisherman. It was a lot to comprehend and process occasionally. There were also parts where things were overly described, think Tolkien, and I skimmed the rest of the paragraph to get to the next relevant information. Overall, It wasn't bad but it isn't something I'd ever go back too.

A unique group of essays .A book that blends the authors family of gifted seamstresses especially her grandma with the art of fishing.As unusual as this sounds I found this book beautifully written weaving together two unusual diverse topics.Will be recommending and gifting it to friends who I know will really enjoy it.#netgalley #counterpointpress