I heard about this book via this post on Tumblr and immediately thought that YES, I would like to read more about how men have actually engaged with fiber crafts for a long time, especially since the blurb says:

It reveals that since medieval times men have threaded their own needles, stitched and knitted, woven lace, handmade clothes, as well as other kinds of textiles, and generally delighted in the pleasures and possibilities offered by all sorts of needlework.

Well.

The book actually focuses on a period that goes from the Victorian era to the contemporary era, and when I say focus, I really mean FOCUS. The author describes at length the work of several English and American authors and artists, with probably more details that I was ready to read about.

On one hand some passages were really interesting and I appreciated how the author's point of view was informed by feminism. On the other hand, I realize that I would have been more interested by a well-written longform piece on the topic, but not a full book. There are also several mentions of contemporary needleworks that have been exhibited in museums, that questioned / interrogated our representations of this and that, and I would have preferred to read more about the actual effect they had on their audience or maybe just on the author (like in Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing for instance).

At the end, McBrinn advocates for a deeper study of this topic and for more publications about it, and I think that the book I thought Queering the Subversive Stitch was, the one that would cover a greater time span and explore all the continents, still remains to be written.