Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren't Told - Tapa blanda

Praise for Dropped Threads

"There are exciting and truly intimate entries in this book...these women take ideas even secret ones, and infuse them with poetry, scoured and buffed sentences and ...stopwatch comic timing...The true depth of the collection is found in these women's clear memories and their willingness to share." -- Quill & Quire

"It's a collection of revealing essays and short stories by 35 Canadian women at mid-life and beyond, reflecting on the life events that caught them off guard and, somehow, haven't been talked about...As it turns out, there are many dropped threads in our lives. Weave them together and you've got a tapestry."-- Bonnie Schiedel, Chatelaine, April 2001

"Dropped Threads ... is a collection of 34 pieces by Canadian women in which they describe...everything they never said or were not able to say before, but which had tremendous power in their lives...[Senator Sharon Carstairs's] essay about women in politics [is] clear-eyed and devastating ...Miriam Toews examines her father's lifelong battle with depression, which culminated in his suicide ... with gentleness and insight ... These are all the conversations we would wish to have with friends and these essays stimulate the sense of exuberance and relief that one always feels after a long, self-revelatory talk." -- Virginia Beaton, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, 25 Feb 2001

"Dropped Threads is a much-awaited anthology of essays and stories by Canadian women, including celebrated writers as well as women who are neither writers nor famous ... The angst of the women in Dropped Threads covers a wide spectrum." -- Paul Gessell, Ottawa Citizen, 20 Jan 2001

"If the value of books were measured by the insights stored within their pages, Dropped Threads would be priceless...[This] is a wonderfully well-written and excellently edited book that offers such intimate insights that it sometimes seems like a stream of consciousness. The compositions frequently make the reader feel like an eavesdropper -- and an extremely entertained one at that...The stories in Dropped Threads cathartically tie up loose ends for their writers, while providing readers with an exquisitely crafted patchwork quilt of life experiences." -- Winnipeg Free Press

1. Is there a balance between joy and sadness in Dropped Threads 2 ? 2. The following is a quotation from Carol Shields' novel Unless : 'Unless you're lucky, unless you're healthy, fertile, unless you're loved and fed, unless you're offered what others are offered, you go down in the darkness, down to despair.' Do the stories in Dropped Threads 2 confirm or contradict this statement? 3. Can you compare and contrast two stories from the collection on similar themes? 4. Carol Shields has often spoken of redeeming the lives of ordinary people by recording them in her works; 'especially that group of women who came between the two great women's movements.' Can you compare the experiences of women who grew up in the fifties or before, and those of women who grew up later? 5. Dropped Threads 2 endeavours to look beyond the experiences of middle-class women to a broad cross-section of women with fewer privileges or less freedom in other cultures. What do you think this adds to the collection? 6. Ann Dowsett Johnston in 'The Boy Can't Sleep' says she would like to pass on advice to her son about 'the mating dance of men and women.' What would you tell him? 7. How does this volume compare with the first book? While it is on the same theme, there are some differences. What stands out for you, the reader? 8. What does Adrienne Clarkson's Foreword add to the book? What is her main message to women readers? 9. Do the four divisions help 'organize' the book for readers? Can you see how the stories fit under the individual banners of End Notes , Variations , Glimpses , and Nourishment ? 10. What are some aspects of the surprises and silences in women's lives that haven't been touched on in either volume of Dropped Threads ? What topic would you suggest in reply to the question, 'What do women generally not talk about or pass on to others'?