Fabric

The Hidden History of the Material World

By: Victoria Finlay

Narrated by: 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

Wonderful story telling.

Both a very personal and scholarly historical journey into the fascinating and compelling story of textiles and the making of fabrics.

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.

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.

A Beautiful history

This is one of the most beautiful social histories that I have ever read. The author weaves the histories of fabrics with her own story of grief and the celebration of her parents lives. I have never cried while reading a history of an everyday object, but this book is not like the other. I highly recommend reading this beautiful book.

Perspective

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