Something I didn't mention - last week, my copy of "The Gentle Art of Domesticity" by Jane Brocket (the woman who used to write the yarnstorm blog) came. (I had ordered the U.S. version - I didn't quite feel like messing with the exchange rate and shipping for the UK version. Oh, I'm sure someone will hasten to tell me how, like the television show "The Office" and the Harry Potter books, the actual-factual British version is so much better and I am being an ignorant American for settling for the US version, but whatever.

I will say that at least the recipes come in cups and not grams. So I don't have to go out and buy a kitchen scale to make them).

It is the kind of book that is not for everyone. I know several women in my circle of friends who would be actively repulsed by the tone, if not the subject matter.

Fortunately, I am not "everyone." I love the book, unabashedly.

It's a series of essays - something like what she used to write on yarnstorm, but longer in format. The book is essentially about making a life - about the fact that domestic things CAN be a pleasure if you view them as such. And so she devotes sections to knitting and baking and reading and quilting and writing about her family.

And it's very restful and pleasant. It's the kind of book I want after one of those days where I've dealt with people who want something done NOW, and other people who think they're entitled to something they really aren't entitled to, and the phone ringing all day long...the kind of book that's sort of like a cup of hot chocolate at the end of the day.

And she lists some of her favorite books (some of which I want to read now) and some of her favorite movies, and has a few of her favorite paintings (mostly by British artists of the early 20th century) reproduced in there.

It's the kind of book that I'd be tempted to read all in one whack, but which I'm not...I want to save some of the essays up, I don't want to read them all right away, so I've become familiar with the whole book and don't have anything new to look forward to in it.

And the photography is glorious.

It does present a nice fantasy life - well, it would be a fantasy life for me - not having to work out of the home, having a husband who (apparently) shares in some of the housework (the one part of domesticity that Ms. Brocket openly admits to not liking). Having enough time and money to do more or less as one pleases (or at least that's the impression the book gives; the reality may be different. And if it is, I don't really want to know it...)

One other thing that makes me happy - Ms. Brocket expresses a fondness for "simple" quilts - most of the quilts pictured in her book are based on squares and rectangles. And that cheers me. Because I like the simple square-and-rectangle quilts too. I like planning them and making them, I like the way they look. And sometimes, I admit, the Quilt Hierarchy being what it is, I get the feeling from people of, "That's very nice, dear, but when are you going to progress to a real quilt like Mariner's Compass?"

And well - if a famous ex-blogger and published author can make and like square and rectangle based quilts, then I am justified in making them myself.

(She also likes self-patterning sockyarn made up into simple socks. Take that, you "Oh, I only do REAL colorwork" snobs).

Brocket also includes some recipes with the book. (Helpfully translated, in the U.S. edition, into cups and tablespoons for those of us without kitchen scales).

I've already tried one. Her Flapjack recipe. "Flapjack," in the British usage, is not a pancake. The best I can describe it is as a sort of baked caramel with oats in it. Her recipe is very basic - oats, butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup - but there are more complex ones out there.

I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about flapjack. On the one hand, it's good - it's chewy and caramelly - but on the other, I have this horrible feeling of "do I like it well enough to justify the doubtless-massive number of calories per serving?" (The recipe she has calls for 3/4 cup butter for an 8" square pan). So I don't know. But it is interesting to try, just as an experiment, to see what people somewhere else eat.

(I also wonder if perhaps that's not too much butter. After the flapjack had cooled, it kind of left a layer of unincorporated butter on the bottom of the dish).

I think one reason I do like the book is its Britishness. And another reason is that Ms. Brocket is not a snob - as I said, she likes her quilts the way she makes them and doesn't seem to care that other people might do more complex things. And she likes simple knitting projects. And she openly admits that sometimes her liking of color or form isn't what "tasteful" people would like. And that also makes me happy.

So, as I said: not a book for everybody but most definitely a book for me.