SusannaG - Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady
Just another GR refugee. Other than that, I had a stroke in 2004, and read almost anything I can get my hands on, though I have a particular weakness for history, mystery, and historical fiction.
Currently reading
The Victorian City
Judith Flanders wrote Inside the Victorian Home, which pondered what exactly went on in each room of a Victorian house (leaving the question of why Jane Carlyle had 10 dining chairs in her bedroom unanswered, alas); this book is the companion, looking at the Victorian street, where so much of public life went on.
I can't recommend this one more. It is a fascinating read.
For a great many people of Victorian London lived most of their lives out on the streets. (For many people could not afford a house, but only a room, or part of one. Or none at all.) They walked (most of them many miles a day), ate (many inadequately), worked (for insane hours, up to 20 hours a day), and entertained themselves there, too.
Covers all sorts of territory, from one of the most ostentatious non-royal funerals ever (that of the Duke of Wellington, in 1852), to a discussion of what exactly was a prostitute, how did men recognize them when they saw them, and how many whores there were in London.
"Dickens' London" is not just a phrase for a catchy title: this book is about the London of his lifetime (only very occasionally do we stray later than the early 1870s, or earlier than about 1810), and a number of relevant episodes from his life and writings are mentioned.
Thoroughly illustrated, with black and white illustrations in the text, maps of Victorian London in the front, and a couple of color inserts. Plentiful endnotes.
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