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Tuesday, October 28, 2003

wonderful wonderful (stinky) book

I am 26 pages into What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox-Hunting to Whist -- the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England, and I have already added it to my Christmas list. I am in love. This is the book I have always dreamed of having. Where has it been all my life? (or at least, where has it been since I discovered 19th-century literature in high school?). It has ALL KINLT of information on all sorts of topics I've wondered about for years. Like, for example, all those shillings and pence and pounds and stuff, and the locations of the counties (finally I know where Derbyshire is). All this is information that can be had online as well, I'm sure. In fact, not being one to sit around and wonder, I have looked up some of it and found it. But to have all this kind of thing bound between covers in one place is just delicious. Even if it does smell like stale cigarette smoke.


Another benefit (?) is that the author keeps quoting little bits of Victorian books, some of which I have read, and some of which I haven't, and the effect this has on me is to make me want to go pull these books off the shelf and READ, NOW. I sense that I will be up quite late tonight.

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