Clean. Katherine Ashenburg

Clean. An Unsanitised History of Washing
Katherine Ashenburg
Published: Profile Books
Date: 2007
Format: Hardback
Pages: 358
Genre: Microhistory
Source: Local Library

Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing by Katherine Ashenbury is not my normal realm of reading! This is a microhistory and I read it for The Eclectic Reading Challenge. I might have been becoming desperate as to what book I might read!

I thought it was going to be a general book on being clean like house cleaning and so on. However it is a history of personal cleanliness and was interesting enough.

The Romans had a sophisticated system for bathing, and spent much time in the bath houses, doing many other things beside bathing. However it was a relaxing place and mostly communal. So I thought well why didn't it stay that way.

The early Christians often were more interested in the spirit than the body and some even thought the smellier and dirtier they were the more saintly.  So pleased I wasn't an early Christian.  So other cultures often regarded Christians as dirty and who can blame them.

The Middle Ages saw the revival of public and some private bath houses. However with the advent of plagues like The Black Death, these were more and more closed. There was a belief that the body was porous and all kinds of things could get into the body through water, it was believed you might even become pregnant among some!!

Bathing from the 16 to 18th centuries was not that prevalent, again it was a belief water would permeate the body through pores. Although by the time Napoleon came along he was into long hot baths to relax. Anyone able to say they love a six hour bath?

The 18th and 19th centuries saw more developments around washing and if you're interested Charles Dickens believed cold showers were the thing! What makes this book interesting to me are the small inconsequential details and sketches of strange looking things people have used in the quest for cleanliness.

Now today we have certain beliefs about cleanliness. Products abound. Some people have become germophobic. Practices vary - some shower or bath every day and some still don't. However most of us expect the people around us to be clean.

What will it be like one century on? Will a future water shortage have any impact?

This book had everything I didn't know I needed to know. If it weren't for the challenge, I wouldn't have read it - but there you are!

Microhistory

Storybook Travels. Colleen Dunn Bates & Susan Latempa

Storybook Travels: From Eloise's New York to Harry Potter's London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children's Literature.
Colleen Dunn Bates & Susan Latempa
Published: Three Rivers Press
Date: 2002
Format: Paperback
Pages: 266
Genre: Non-Fiction Travel
Source: Local Library

With itineraries for more than thirty locales in North America and Europe, Storybook Travels explores destinations near and far, rural and urban. Whether you want to plan a trip that will mean as much to you as it will to your children (or grandchildren), are looking for ways to enrich already-planned trips, or want to bring to life the fondly remembered books of your own childhood, Storybook Travels is your guide to one enchanting journey after another.

I read Storybook Travels as my non-fiction travel book for The Eclectic Reader challenge.  Like the crime book I stood for a long time in front of the travel section at the local library.  Finally this book caught my eye and I knew it was the one.  Not so much because I was going to follow this itinerary, but because as I read books I think - I would love to visit this setting.  As a child when I read books, I spent a long time visualising places and wanting to go to these exotic places.  In actual fact I am not much of a traveller, I don't want to go and stand in ancient ruins etc, but storybook places - now that would hook me.

This book is written for adults who might take their children to various places, yet I found it just interesting.  I have seen a few criticisms on Goodreads from readers saying they could write as much themselves.  All I can say is well why don't they or why didn't they do it!  These authors have travelled with their children to Europe, Britain and around America and share what they saw and how it related to the books which inspired the trip.

The places mentioned that I would love to visit are:

1. Tuscany - Italy as this is the place where the creator of Pinocchio lived. Would be a great area to visit, but going to the town and visiting Parco de Pinocchio I would enjoy too.
2. Prince Edward Island, Canada with of course the Anne of Green Gables book in mind.
3. Graubunden, Switzerland with Heidi giving the impetus to go there.  I adored Heidi when I was growing up, my top favourite story and I would love to visit and walk the trails.
4. Concord, Massachusetts would take me to where Little Women was written.  Loved that book too.  
5. Lake District, England to the place where Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated.  Again a picturesque place and I loved some of those books.  I also really enjoyed the movie about Beatrix Potter.

Thirty places are discussed, what is there, what you can do and so on, where to contact for more information.  I would happily go to the five places above and visit with child's eyes as well as my own adult eyes.  Books would make me want to travel where nothing much else would.  Even as I read today I think hmm would love to visit this place.

Have you visited places because of books?  Or if you had the choice to visit one place what would it be?

Travel - Non Fiction

Sophie's Legacy. Lesley Elliot and J. O'Brien

Sophie's Legacy
Lesley Elliot with J. O'Brien
Publisher: Random House
Date: 2011
Format: Paperback
Pages: 263
Genre: Memoir/Crime NF
Source: Local library.

Sophie Elliot had everything to live for - good looks, intelligence, friends, a loving family, a degree and a new job at the Treasury in Wellington.  And then, the day before she left Dunedin to take up that job, she was brutally stabbed to death in her own home by her former boyfriend, Clayton Weatherston.

Weatherston was much older and one of her tutors at the University of Otago.  When the public came to take his measure at the high profile trial in 2009, his narcissistic and manipulative personality stunned the nation.

Sophie's Legacy is not my usual reading fare, I read it for a challenge that I am participating in - The Eclectic Reader Challenge 2014.  I spent a long while in the crime section of our local library looking for a book that I would want to read.  Eventually I picked out this one because I remembered the nights I sat in front of the TV during the news and watched some of the drama play out.  I was one of many New Zealanders  totally repulsed by the narcissism displayed by the murderer.

The book is written by Sophie's mother with the help of William J 'Brien who was a policeman for many years.  Leslie Elliot was in the house the day her daughter was murdered.  It happened upstairs and when she heard the shouts of her daughter she went to help, only to find a shocking scene.  The book details the terrible  murder and the events of that day.

This book is told from the victim's point of view, how that day impacted on her, as you can imagine it affected her severely.  She also shares the details of the relationship of Sophie and Weatherstone, and how the signs were there that he was a highly unstable character, yet with ways about him that sucked young women in.  Sophie herself was highly intelligent, the light of her family's life - she has two brothers and her parents.  I am sure she would have gone on to carve out a wonderful career for herself and to live a very fulfilling life.  All taken from her.

This book highlights the justice system in New Zealand from the victim's point of view.  Everything is geared to the accused, and there were substantial delays while the defence were looking for various things.  The Elliot family were kept in the dark about many happenings, which added to their stress and grief.  The defence set out to make Sophie sound like someone who had provoked Weatherstone into murdering her!  Her diary was taken and made public.  He had the best defence in New Zealand at the time - Judith Albett Kerr QC and Greg King ( who sadly a few years later committed suicide.)  Eventually Weatherstone was found guilty and given an 18 year sentence.

Leslie has begun to work with others setting up the Sophie Elliot foundation to set up prevention education for young women with regards to abuse in dating relationships.  I think she has a book coming out later in 2014 about this.

My heart went out to Lesley and the family, an ordinary everyday family catapulted into  tragedy and the public eye.  Sophie with so much promise her life taken by an abusive man.  It was well worth reading, Lesley made it very real.

Crime - Non Fiction

My 2013 Book Challenge

While I am joining the TBR 2013 book challenge and an audio book challenge, I am also setting my own one for myself, so that I have something else to challenge me. I  read middle grade and ya fiction as part of my work as a teacher, I usually read one of those a week. Very good reading I might add.

4 non fiction.

5 of a series.

8 that are already on my Kindle as of this day.

4 rereads of novels I have loved.

4 new to me authors.

2 from a sub genre of romance I rarely or have never read.

2 from a genre I rarely or never read. Choose them from a Goodread's top list of that genre

12 published in 2013 (Hopefully this will cover must buy and read immediately  authors I love!)

7 whose titles begin with my name letters. K.A.T.H.R.Y.N

4 recommended by other readers.


A book may only be named in one category!

Do you join reading challenges or set personal reading goals?

Image credit: Tablet and Books www. 123rf .com