Read more about the article Reading Ruth Goodman’s “How to Be a Victorian”

Reading Ruth Goodman’s “How to Be a Victorian”

  • Post category:History
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Ruth Goodman is one of my favourite historians. I’ve watched several of her shows and have seen her as a guest on other history programs, and am always impressed by how she tries to live as period-authentic as she can during a project. I don’t have that much commitment to anything!

I’ve recently finished her book How to be a Victorian, which I was very excited about. If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that my favourite part of history are the smaller, everyday moments of regular people – and that’s kind of Ruth’s whole thing. This quote from the book is a prime example of why I love her – when talking about dry rubbing instead of washing, she writes:

(more…)

Continue ReadingReading Ruth Goodman’s “How to Be a Victorian”
Read more about the article The history of fictional worlds

The history of fictional worlds

In 2016, I wrote the following blog post for my history blog, The Small Histories. I was thinking about it again recently and wanted to share it here as well – book lovers will appreciate it! Also, I had to actually laugh out loud when I read “I’m not a worldbuilding sort of writer” – Oh if only the me of 2016 knew that worldbuilding would be ALL she’d do just two years later!

(more…)

Continue ReadingThe history of fictional worlds

Secret Lives of Great Authors

  • Post category:History
  • Reading time:2 mins read

Note: This post originally appeared on Wordscience, a now defunct writing-focused blog of mine, on March 15, 2009. I was recently flipping through that blog’s archives and came across this post, which I thought would be neat to share here too. I've recently shared another post from that blog, "Weather, history,…

Continue ReadingSecret Lives of Great Authors