Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight,
a memoir of life with Alexandra Fuller and her family on a farm in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe.)
After the Rhodesian Bush War ended in 1980, the Fullers moved to Malawi, and then to Zambia.
The book won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 2002, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002 and a finalist for The Guardian's First Book Award, an award given to the best regional novel of the year.
Well written, we see events thru the eyes and voice of the young woman, with occasional comments which set the historical events into place.
She is sympathetic towards the Africans.
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton: The First Domestic Goddess, by Kathryn Hughes.
Lovely writer, it is the story behind the famous Victorian household management book, but more importantly it is a social history of what life,customs, behavior, clothes, was like during that period.
I love social histories, they have so many educational tidbits. The best ones read like novels, as this one does.
Speaking of, Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge is another social history, by Lindy Woodhead ( delicious British name, no?)
if you have been watching the series, which just ended, you know of him as the successful innovative Dept. store owner.
The book goes back to beginning, where he came from what life was like, who were his famous contemporaries.
very readable.
All of these are put down/pick up again books, at least that is the way I like to read them.
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