Some reads elicit a long response and lots of thinking about them, and some reads don’t. These are a few of those who didn’t get lots of thinking after their read. (They’re still good and enjoyable. Just not that thought-provoking in the end.)
Lucia’s Progress – E. F. Benson (#4 in the Mapp and Lucia series) 
“One man hits the ball away and another throws it back and all the rest eat daisies…” – Georgie about cricket.
Another tale of the adventures of Mapp and Lucia in their kingdom of Tilling – very funny in places, and I think Benson had a good time writing these books. He certainly has a very sly sense of humor which is much appreciated. Only one more Benson book in the series, and then..? I might look at some of the spin-offs to see if they continue his brilliance in this world.
Fashion: A Definitive History of Clothing – Smithsonian Museum (2012)
Lots of pretty pictures along with a ton of details about how clothing has evolved over the past 3,000 years, this was the book that I was searching for when I accidentally picked up Tim Gunn’s apology of a title the other day. This is a hefty book (10 pounds on the bathroom scale!) and *packed* with details about clothing and textile history, so after a while, I was a little bogged down in it, but once I had worked out how I wanted to read it, it was a lovely book to pick up and put down and it made a nice change of pace for me. (I’m not really a big fashionista preferring casual for the most part. I do appreciate good design and good photography, both of which this book had in enormous amounts.)
Here are some random notes along the way:
- Armor (as in chain mail and knights and jousting) could weigh as much as 81 pounds when it was all put on.
- The zipper was invented in 1913 (and I can only imagine how much more quickly people could get dressed in the morning when it came out).
- There was a WRINS in India that I had not heard anything about: Women’s Royal Indian Naval Service, and their uniform was identical to that of the WRENS except it included a sari.
- And then, found this hilarious photo of motorbike racing driver and champion Oscar Godfrey during the British Motorcycle Race Club trials of 1911:
Source: Gettyimages.com
(If you’ll look closely at the top of his hat…. He looks rather like a Teletubby to me. :-))
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