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Twenty-first-century women are called upon to perform any manner of tasks, recall even the most random bits of information, and all the while carry on a charming conversation. Thankfully, from historian and British television personality Francesca Beauman comes this indispensable and authoritative survival guide that will allow women to tackle any problem and work any party with ease, style, and grace. Everything But the Kitchen Sink is a compendium of delightfully witty facts, figures, diagrams, lists, charts, quotes, and practical advice. True, you may not ever need to know how to roast a hedgehog, treat a shark bite, or say "No, thank you. Please leave me alone" in Russian. But isn't it good to know you can?
Have you ever wondered about the average age of brides 500 years ago or whether you are legally allowed to marry your brother's daughter's husband? Are you familiar with the marriage customs of the Na people of south-west China? Or would you know what to do if a swarm of bees attacked your wedding reception? Wonder no more! Within these pages you will find all you need to know (and a few things you don't) in order to enter into the dizzying, daring dance that is a modern marriage. From the totally frivolous to the deeply serious, from champagne consumption in the Yemen to celebrity wedding dress designers, How to Wear White is a funny, eclectic and essential addition to every twenty-first-century bride's trousseau. True, you may not ever need to know the names of all of Elizabeth Taylor's spouses or how to say 'My husband' in Norwegian, but isn't it fabulous that you do?
A factual account of the trial of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper journalists for phone hacking, corruption of officials, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. His favourite executive, Rebekah Brooks, editor of the News of the World and The Sun, was acquitted and her friend and colleague Andy Coulson jailed. This book covers every twist and turn of the case, which took place at the Old Bailey in London in 2013 and 2014. It includes a list of the charges, defendants and their counsel and previously unreported material.
There have always been mail-order brides in America—but we haven’t always thought about them in the same ways. In Buying a Bride, Marcia A. Zug starts with the so-called “Tobacco Wives” of the Jamestown colony and moves all the way forward to today’s modern same-sex mail-order grooms to explore the advantages and disadvantages of mail-order marriage. It’s a history of deception, physical abuse, and failed unions. It’s also the story of how mail-order marriage can offer women surprising and empowering opportunities. Drawing on a forgotten trove of colorful mail-order marriage court cases, Zug explores the many troubling legal issues that arise in mail-order marriage: domestic ab...
Within these pages you will find all you need to know (and a few things you don't) in order to embark on the mindboggling journey that is modern motherhood. Discover humorous yet pertinent advice on everything from what a new mother ought to wear on the red carpet to the best books to read while feeding a baby, and marvel at what Mark Twain had to say on teething, Vladimir Nabokov on prams, Mrs Gaskell on six-month-olds and Mrs Beeton on breastfeeding. From the totally frivolous to the deeply serious, from the cultural to the historical, from the history of the Caesarean to celebrity baby names, this is an intelligent, classy and eclectic guide for every twenty-first-century mother or mother-to-be. For it is important to acknowledge that, even though they may have a basketball in their stomachs, they still have a brain in their heads. It is a book to give to friends, daughters and sisters - and to cherish for yourself. True, you may not ever need to know what year the epidural was invented, how to write your child's name in Chinese, or what the gestation period of an anteater is, but isn't it fabulous to know that you do?
Have you ever wondered: o How to deliver a baby? o How to put up a tent in the dark? o How to buy a swimming costume? o How to decide whether or not accept a marriage proposal? Or have you grappled with the thorny issues of the etiquette of group sex, where to sit dysfunctional family members at a wedding, or how to say 'Please', 'Thank you' and 'Would you like to dance?' in thirty different languages? Have you found yourself lost for words at a dinner party, or struggling to remember Kate Moss's boyfriends - and the haircuts she had while she was with them - or wanting to know the ingredients of a lipstick or the central premises of the world's main religions? Then look no further. The answers to all these questions, and more, lie within the pages of this book. Everything But the Kitchen Sink is the definitive distillation of current wisdom for the modern woman. It is a celebration of all things female: a delightful cornucopia of essential facts, figures, diagrams, lists, pie charts, quotes and practical advice that deserves a place in every handbag, backpack or Birkin.
The neglected histories of 19th-century NYC’s maligned working-class fortune tellers and the man who set out to discredit them Under the pseudonym Q. K. Philander Doesticks, P. B., humor writer Mortimer Thomson went undercover to investigate and report on the fortune tellers of New York City’s tenements and slums. When his articles were published in book form in 1858, they catalyzed a series of arrests that both scandalized and delighted the public. But Mortimer was guarding some secrets of his own, and in many ways, his own life paralleled the lives of the women he both visited and vilified. In Mortimer and the Witches, author Marie Carter examines the lives of these marginalized fortun...
In this book the author explores the various meanings assigned to goods sold retail from 1550 to 1820 and how their labels were understood. The first half of the book focuses on these labels and on mercantile language more broadly; how it was used in trade and how lexicographers and others approached what, for them, were new vocabularies. In the second half, the author turns to the goods themselves, and their relationships with terms such as ’luxury’, ’choice’ and ’love’; terms that were used as descriptors in marketing goods. The language of objects is a subject of ongoing interest and the study of consumables opens up new ways of looking at the everyday language of the early modern period as well as the experiences of trade and consumption for both merchant and consumer.
This enchanting, juicy history takes us from the pineapple's origins in the Amazon rainforests to its first tasting by Columbus in Guadeloupe and its starring role on the royal dinner tables of Europe. In the eighteenth-century this spectacular fruit reigned supreme: despite the fact that, at first, to cultivate just one cost the same as a new coach, every great house soon boasted its own steaming pits filled with hundreds upon hundreds of pineapple plants. As the Prada handbag of its day, a real-life, homegrown pineapple was a powerful status symbol, so much so that at first, it was extremely unusual actually to eat the fruit. The image appeared on gateposts, on teapots, furniture and wallp...
Every week thousands of people advertise for love either in newspapers, magazines or online. But if you think this is a modern phenomenon, think again u the ads have been running for over three centuries. In 1695, nestling in a weekly pamphlet on Husbandry and Trade, surrounded by ads for a cobbler's apprentice, an Arabian stallion and a second-hand bed, was the brave plea of a young gentleman who 'would willingly Match himself to some Good Young Gentlewoman, that has a Fortune of u3000 or thereabouts'. This was just the beginning. In the 1730s papers carried regular ads in which income or respectability were the most desired qualities, though some asked for a 'shapely ankle' or a 'non-dancer' and by 1900 twenty-five British newspapers were dedicated solely to matrimonial ads.