“How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life”, by Ruth Goodman

480 pages, Liveright, ISBN-13: 978-1631491139

Ah, my dear old Barnes & Noble on Rochester Road in Rochester Michigan, what would I do without you? Oh sure, you have all of the modern and newly-published books I could ever want, but you also have a mega-selection of used and publisher overstock books that are simply treasures awaiting discovery – and that’s just what How to Be a Victorian: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Victorian Life by Ruth Goodman is: a used book that I got for cheap that proved to be an interesting look back at a way of life (or I should rather say, ways of lives) that are not too removed from our own from an era that birthed us. And it is what it says it is: a dawn to dusk guide to life during the reign of Queen Victoria. This is a very well researched book with a lot of detail with chapters that take you from waking in the morning, personal hygiene, clothing and fashion, work, leisure, exercise, food, education, medical care, and bedtime (oh, and a little bit of sex thrown in, too). Goodman further breaks this down into an explanation of how these activities and daily rituals vary for the different social classes and both sexes and discusses the myriad social and economic changes across the period of dear old Vicky’s reign. But what truly makes this work informative is that it is written from the perspective of a person who has actually recreated the Victorian experience, as Goodman is also the presenter of the BBC television educational documentary series Victorian Farm, Victorian Pharmacy and Edwardian Farm, amongst others. She hasn’t just researched it; she’s lived it. I found this book absolutely fascinating as it is all about the everyday things you wonder about but don’t get to learn from most history books. Goodman’s experience living as a Victorian on BBC reality shows has enriched this book immensely, as she has first-hand knowledge of what she is describing (did you know that corsets are surprisingly comfortable, although itchy, and that you had to learn to sit and move properly in a crinoline or bustle?). The tricks and etiquette of using chamber pots, how privies were kept clean and sweet smelling, dealing with menstruation, looking after babies, cooking on a coal range are all covered. I would recommend this book to anyone who finds the small details of the past as interesting as I do.

“The Vampire Genevieve”, by Jack Yeovil

763 pages, The Black Library, ISBN-13: 978-1844162444

The Vampire Genevieve is an omnibus collections of Kim Newman’s…er, make that “Jack Yeovil’s” four Warhammer books: Drachenfels from 1989, Beasts in Velvet from 1991, Genevieve Undead from 1993 (which are three novellas published as a single book), and Silver Nails from 2002, which is a collection of short stories. The title is actually misleading, as Genevieve in not the dominant character in any of the stories in the volume and is completely absent from a number of them (I suppose that the title is mostly for marketing, implying as it does that the main character is a sexy, beautiful butt-kicking vampire helps sell books to the targeted readers). What makes this collection especially interesting is that it was written before the Warhammer world’s mythos was really settled: thus, in this collection vampires are rather accepted by the people at large, while in the current Warhammer setting they’re hunted and staked on a regular basis. Anyway, when it comes to writing modern vampire tales in whatever world they may find themselves in, Newman deserves the title of grandmaster; his style is both ornate and easy to read, his plots are complex and engaging, and his ironic humor and real-life references add an unique flavor to his works that I can describe only as…Newmanesque.

Perhaps the most glaring thing about his writing is his expert use of flamboyant, deliberately silly characters; The Vampire Genevieve is full of such personas and, depending on your disposition, each can be viewed as either lovable or absurd. The writer knows this, and offers no apology – in other words, he doesn’t explain the joke, you either get it or you don’t (and shame on you if you don’t). For me, the greatest flaw in this collection is the idealized way in which it depicts vampirism. Genevieve isn’t damaged by sunlight, doesn’t have to drink blood often, doesn’t have to sleep in a coffin, and can swim in running water all she wants. She looks all of sixteen, has great strength and endurance, excellent night vision, can mutate her teeth and fingers into fangs and claws at will, and doesn’t have to kill anyone when feeding – her “victims” actually relish the experience. She can walk unopposed among humanity, parading her eternal youth and overall superiority as she wills; the only inconvenience she experiences is that she occasionally runs into a vampire-hater who will, at the very worst, tell her to steer clear of him/her. One has to wonder; why aren’t there more vampires about? Why would anyone say no to a socially acceptable immortality that has no downside to speak of? Having said all that the book is quite good and deserves a much wider audience than the Warhammer readership it’s targeted to. If you have read any of Newman’s other books and liked them, you’ll definitely have a lot of fun with this volume.

“City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa”, by Adam LeBor

464 pages, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN-13: 978-0393329841

City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa by Adam LeBor is constructed from the lives of six ordinary families that were forever disrupted by the painful birth of modern Israel: two Christian, two Muslim and two Jewish, all of whom were rooted in the ancient port city of Jaffa, which is now nothing more than a suburb of Tel Aviv (indeed, the modern-day urban conclave is called Tel Aviv-Yafo to reflect this). LeBor mounts no passionate polemical on the single most acrimonious, accusative question about foreign policy that Americans and Europeans face today; instead, he tells a story in the fullest, most empathic and balanced way that makes a complex argument mostly by relating the facts of human lives (perhaps the best compliment I can pay to LeBor is that, except for a few barbs thrown at Sharōn and Netanyahu, I could not discern his political leanings). From extensive personal interviews, memoirs and private archives, LeBor has created vivid portraits of these six families to illustrate the narrative of 20^th Century Arab-Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli relations. It is an argument about two peoples, Jews and Palestinians, in the same historical dilemma: exiles, refugees, despised and degraded for political motives, victims of catastrophe but now pitted against one another in the same slice of the Middle East in a way that leaves them scant sympathy for one another, though their plights are so similar.

Although LeBor’s cast of characters may seem daunting, he knows the players intimately, allowing the reader to be drawn into the complex and often turbulent lives of each generation as they endure political and social upheaval, urban decay and development, the violence of war, and the chaos of its aftermath. In such a situation, merely to tell the true story of the historical accident of the clash of these two peoples, and to tell it by relating the lives of real individuals, real families, caught in the history of one legendary, ancient, seductive city on the Mediterranean is to offer an answer. LeBor dispels common myths and media representations about both sides as he articulates, through the family members, the issues, little and big, of daily life in modern Israel. The answer is that politics are indeed important, but, in the end, politics are about the lives of individuals and families. With striking conviction and eloquence, the six families share with LeBor their extraordinary, centuries-old histories and diasporas as they found themselves on different sides of violently divisive issues and events while living within this small, seaside city. Whatever the aching summons of race, religion, and ethnicity, they are less important than the question: what, now, at this time in history, will open the lives, and hopes, of the individuals and families whose future is at stake?