Review on 🧶 Exploring Dutch Traditional Ganseys: Authentic Sweaters from 40 Charming Villages by Michelle Langley

I was looking forward to this book but read some mediocre reviews about it and have to agree with them. The English translation from Dutch was poor, apparently made in the Netherlands, while it probably would have been better done by someone whose native language was English. The sentence structure was at times awkward, contradictory - in some places the author seemed to believe the myth that fishermen's hometowns could be identified by the stitch patterns on their sweaters, and in other places he said this was not true; inappropriate use of commas - too many where not needed and not used where they should be - and so on. There were many old photographs from the late 1800's to the 1920's that were interesting to look at, although many of them were not sharp enough to see the details of the sweater. There were also great contemporary photos of some of the fishing villages and models wearing new sweaters based on old patterns. Unfortunately, not all sweaters were shown like this. In some shots, the sweater lay flat and was so small that it was difficult to see the stitch patterns, let alone small details. There were diagrams of all the stitch patterns, but with a blue background and white symbols. Perhaps the author felt it was appropriate since most sweaters would be navy blue, but it's kind of hard on the eyes. I would have to redraw everything before trying to use it.