Rachael Matthews

I received an ARC of this book to read through NetGalley in exchange for a fair review. The Mindfulness in Knitting by Rachael Matthews is a series of essays and some creative exercises to work through. I asked to read this book because I struggle with mindfulness, but I love to knit, and so I thought hey this might be a breakthrough for me. The result is that I still struggle with mindfulness, I probably always will because that is just how my brain works, but I found the ideas expressed in the essays to be intriguing and I enjoyed reading them. I think this book would be an excellent resource for someone who is more in touch with their spiritual self than I am, as the essays are thought-provoking and the exercises were fun to do. I would suggest getting a physical copy of the book as the e-book version that I read was difficult to read unless I had it in landscape mode as in portrait mode having two pages on the same screen made it the print too small for me to read. Publishing Date April 14, 2020. #NetGalley #QuartoPublishingGroup #LeapingHarePress #TheMindfulnessInKnitting #KnittingBooks #MindfulnessBooks #RachelMatthews #bookstagram… (more)

The Mindfulness in Knitting Meditation on Craft and Calm by Rachel Matthews
Wanted to read this book because it is about knitting and I love to knit.
Talks about connection between your mind and your hand movements. Like how they teach you to get over the problem things in knitting, try sketching instead or do some math.
Learn your learning style: i can just look at an outfit and know basically what i need to do to make it. Probably has something to do with my blindness.
Also I have connection with the peacefulness of knitting-gives me so much time to either listen to books on tape or pray and think.
Love how hidden textures will tell you a story about me or one that I've made for another.
I do that with Irish fisherman stitching. Like how they relate the knitting process to computing.
Love the warm up exercises, never thought to do them. All kinds of tips and techniques to use to solve problems with your knitting.
Discussions of where the yarn came from and how it was made and under what conditions.
Like how the way i treat my sacred space has crossed over to other places in my home.
Like the connection with numbers also, different sequences. Ends with index and acknowledgements. Very thoughtful book.
Received this review copy from Quarto Publishing Group - Leaping Hare Press via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
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Siren is the second novel of Melbourne author Rachel Matthews. It's a clever title, because it has multiple meanings. It's an allusion to the deafening sound of the siren that sounds at the end of a football match, and in this novel it also refers to the end of a football career, and symbolises the end of innocence. A siren can also be an alarm, a warning people to take action - as perhaps we as a society should if we recognise the novel's message. And tragically, in the context of the sixteen year old girl who gets raped after a night of clubbing, the word also carries a wry allusion to the sirens of Homeric myth, gorgeous beings who lured men to their death. Because sixteen-year-old Jordi is not a gorgeous being luring anybody anywhere: she's an ordinary, foolish, inarticulate girl who gets in a taxi with two blokes she doesn't know. They're not luring her either. She goes willingly to her fate.

The novel is unrelentingly bleak. Jordi lives with her siblings in chaotic squalor, living on junk food and stumbling over dirty nappies on the floor. Her mother, Petra, loves her children, but not enough to give them a decent home life. Her husband Kane is often away chasing work (and women) and Petra is always short of money for the basics so she spends a lot of time out of the house, gambling on Bingo in hope of the miracle. Jordi loves these feckless parents but she's beginning to see the truth about them.

In all the world, the only person Jordi can tell is her BFF Shilo, but even so it takes a while for Jordi to hint at what has happened - and Shilo's reaction is to tell her that she can get compensation from the AFL. At school, the toxic atmosphere of teenage gossip makes her fearful of being labelled a slut. The adults around her try to unravel the reasons for her obvious physical and psychological pain, but none of them - her mother, her school counsellor and the doctor - can break through the wall of silence.

To see the rest of my review please visit anzlitlovers.com… (more)