PATTERN IN THE CARPET: A Personal History with Jigsaws - Couverture souple

PRAISE FOR MARGARET DRABBLE:

"Reading Margaret Drabble's novels has become something of a rite of passage.... Sharply observed, exquisitely companionable tales of women of a certain age and class, educated, egocentric, strong, unlucky in love." --The Washington Post

"Drabble's fiction has achieved a panoramic vision of contemporary life." --The Chicago Tribune

"As meticulous as Jane Austen, and as deadly as Evelyn Waugh." --The Los Angeles Times

"Margaret Drabble will have done for late twentieth-century London what Dickens did for Victorian London." --The New York Times Praise for THE SEA LADY: "The language of science mixes with that of religion to produce a holistic, humanistic resolution worthy of that great poet Wordsworth...[Drabble] has created a true thing of beauty." --Martin Rubin, Los Angeles Times "A thoroughly enchanting blend of scientific erudition, social satire and domestic comedy from a novelist who continues to surprise us...The genius of [Drabble's] prose is an ability to be incisive and satiric without sticking her characters on the end of a pin...--Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World "[A] tour de force...With lyrical originality Drabble captures the idealistic, eternally self-absorbed paradoxes of the aging baby-boom generation. The result, like its contradictory protagonists, is as sensual as a moonlit beach, as bracing as an offshore wind." --People (four stars)

A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceOne of "21 Fall Books We're Buzzing About" on More.comA KPBS.org Top Ten Read for FallNPR.org – Top Picks From Indie Booksellers Praise for THE PATTERN IN THE CARPET "[Drabble] is without question, one of the more impeccably respectable writers of her generation. . . . Drabble’s book does have force and gravity...It’s courageous, considering her life’s work, to contemplate the possibility that putting together a jigsaw puzzle might afford a sense of engagement and companionship not unlike, and not inferior to, what a good novel provides."--Michael Cunningham, New York Times Book Review "Meticulously detailed . . . Like birds that flutter-dance away from their nests, at once concealing and revealing them, Drabble lets us glimpse shards of acutely depressive pain through the feverish scrim of her jigsaw puzzle elaborations." --Los Angeles Times "If you are a jigsaw aficionado, then obviously this is the book for you. There is about as much about jigsaws as anyone, even the most dedicated fan, could wish for. But even if you do not have the slightest interest in them, don't let that put you off, for there is a great deal more going on here."--Washington Times "Fascinating."--Boston Globe "Drabble's England is as intricate as Dicken's, her characters as headstrong as Austen's, the morals at stake entirely Waughian, her powers of observation positively Woolf...[A] veritable literary institution" ---Washington Post "History? Memoir? It hardly matters. Drabble takes you on a fascinating journey that begins as a memoir and expands into a colorful tapestry of personal and social history, arcane facts, and observations." --Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel     

The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws is an original and brilliant work. Margaret Drabble weaves her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression. Alongside curious facts and discoveries about jigsaw puzzles — did you know that the 1929 stock market crash was followed by a boom in puzzle sales? — Drabble introduces us to her beloved Auntie Phyl, and describes childhood visits to the house in Long Bennington on the Great North Road, their first trip to London together, the books they read, the jigsaws they completed. She offers penetrating sketches of her parents, her siblings, and her children; she shares her thoughts on the importance of childhood play, on art and writing, on aging and memory. And she does so with her customary intelligence, energy, and wit. This is a memoir like no other.