basic blanca

A critic review (source NY Times) can be read at: http://nyti.ms/2pRGVlQ. So we’ll need other books on the history of “home,” ones that ask questions about why the idea was so firmly promoted, and ones that make use of the new evidence from the earth. But meanwhile, this book has charm and learning. Book description from Google Books: The 500-year story of how, and why, our homes have come to be what they are, from the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Invention of Murder and The Victorian CityThe idea that “home” is a special place, a separate place, a place where we can be our true selves, is so obvious to us today that we barely pause to think about it. But, as Judith Flanders shows in her most ambitious work to date, “home” is a relatively new idea. In The Making of Home, Flanders traces the evolution of the house from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century across northern Europe and America, showing how the homes we know today bear only a faint resemblance to homes though history. What turned a house into a home? Why did northwestern Europe, a politically unimportant, sociologically underdeveloped region of the world, suddenly became the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution, the capitalist crucible that created modernity? While investigating these important questions, Flanders uncovers the fascinating development of ordinary household items–from cutlery, chairs and curtains, to fitted kitchens, plumbing and windows–while also dismantling many domestic myths. In this prodigiously researched and engagingly written book, Flanders elegantly draws together the threads of religion, history, economics, technology and the arts to show not merely what happened, but why it happened: how we ended up in a world where we can all say, like Dorothy in Oz, “There’s no place like home.” The book is rated 3.71/5 at goodreads.com, from 365 ratings. See 79 reader reviews at: http://bit.ly/1jZXkQB. Buy it or see reader reviews on amazon.com at: http://amzn.to/2pRPcGg.

A critic review (source Guardian) can be read at: http://bit.ly/1k0eaPC. It’s astonishing in short. I’d urge you to read it, if it didn’t feel so cruel to send you after a book that has gone out of print. Book description from Google Books: “An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.” –The Washington Post Book World One rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow’s skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of The New York Times, “a dark moral tale … an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.” “Startling and spellbinding … The waters that lave the narrative all run to the great confluence, where the deepest issues of life and death are borne along on the swift, sure vessel of [Doctorow’s] poetic imagination.” –The New York Times Book Review “Hypnotic … a dazzling romp, an extraordinary read, given strength and grace by the telling, by the poetic voice and controlled cynical lyricism of its streetwise and world-weary narrator.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer “A gem of a novel, intimate as chamber music … a thriller guaranteed to leave readers with residual chills and shudders.” –Boston Sunday Herald “Enthralling … a story of debauchery and redemption that is spellbinding from first page to last.” –Chicago Sun-Times “An immense, extraordinary achievement.” –San Francisco Chronicle The book is rated 3.45/5 at goodreads.com, from 2384 ratings. See 224 reader reviews at: http://bit.ly/1k0ecHo. Buy it or see reader reviews on amazon.com at: http://amzn.to/2tMx5Xd.

So Yesterday I finally got to see IT. It was so damn good.(Pun intended)

Book: The Princess Saves Herself In This One Author: Amanda Lovelace Rating: ★★★★★