Fabric

The Hidden History of the Material World

De: Victoria Finlay

Narrado por: Carla Kissane

A magnificent work of original research that unravels history through textiles and cloth—how we make it, use it, and what it means to us.

How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny?

In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it.

She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama.

She began her research just after the deaths of both her parents—and entwined in the threads she found her personal story, too. Fabric is not just a material history of our world, but Finlay's own journey through grief and recovery.

©2022 Victoria Finlay (P)2022 Tantor

Interesting and Touching

I like this book a lot. It’s about different fabrics and weaving. It’s kinda sad with the death of the author’s parents, but it’s through her accounts of her family that you see different things about the fabrics and the fabric of our lives.

Great history of textiles...

...but too much personal details about family. I struggled while listening to the first two chapters, but it really kept my attention from there on. The travelog info gave a new perspective on where & how we have today's fabrics, & I really enjoyed that she covered "artificial" as well as natural cloth.

Perspective

I listened to this immediately after listening to Golden thred, this boook was wonderfully researched and very detajiked. It was fascinating.

Perfect Book for Needleworking

I listened to this book while cross stitching and knitting. I have read many many books on textiles and their history but this book captured and held my interest like no other. So many well researched areas but never going on and on. I learned about textiles near my home and half a world away. Narrator is soothing which is important because this book is as much about the author’s experience or journey just before and after her parents’s death as it is about textiles. Highly recommend it.

Unique + Interesting!

It was so awesome to gain insight about what it takes to produce specific fabrics - A tapestry of human history in itself! Must read!

History and Travelogue

Well researched book on fabric. Loved reading about what she learned on her travels. Engaged the reader the entire time.

A heartfelt memoir and patchwork of fabric

I listened to all of this book mostly because of the pleasant style of it. Many interesting historical concepts, some I knew and some I didn't, are sprinkled throughout.

Transporting

I like the short prefaces as an introduction to a new chapter. I enjoyed learning the origin and history of fabric and textiles I use everyday.

Thrilling!!

If you enjoy finding out how things work and fun stories about “why” and art history OR just any two of these, this is an enthralling book. The narrator is lovely. The author and her family are poetry. I will enjoy and appreciate fabric more. Victoria Finlay makes my world bigger, brighter, and more colorful. Thank you Victoria!! Now I am off to get her next book…..

Detailed history

Loved the detail of history on each fabric. There is so much I didn’t know about the process that the raw material requires to get it to the finished product.