History
The ladies in red
I’m a textiles nerd. I spin, I knit, I weave. I love the feeling of being connected with thousands of ancestors. I’ve read a few books on the subject of textile history, of course, but I doubt most of my Read more…
Science
The Science of Shopping
When you go to a retail shop, especially a chain store, everything you experience is planned from the moment you walk in. Fortune 500 retailers have actually hired people to follow shoppers around and watch what they do. Here’s a Read more…
Site Info
Sorry I’ve been quiet…
I spent this week sick with a cold, so my reading has been limited to absolute fluff with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I’m feeling a little better today, though, so I’m skimming through a couple of books I’ve read already Read more…
Science
The Science of Sleep
Sleep is weird. We spend about a third of our lives asleep. Gerbils and lions do it 13 hours a day. Elephants average only 3.5 hours. Birds and dolphins only sleep with half their brain at a time, so they Read more…
History
The pandemics of World War I
Subtitle: Why You Should Always Get Your Flu Shot In the year 1918, the entire world caught influenza. It was a particularly virulent strain, and thanks to troop movements in WWI it became the first recorded global pandemic. A lot Read more…
History
Alcohol in early America
The short version: from colonial times until the mid-1800’s, white America was drunk. Really drunk. Like, most of the time, especially the men. But even the women and children made our modern-day party animals look like lightweights in comparison. The Read more…
History
Mauve
This is the first book I’ve read specifically for this blog. Being a milestone, I wanted it to be a good one, a perfect example of how the books I read sound dull at first but are fascinating and involve Read more…
History
The Empire of Death, and Heavenly Bodies
Let’s talk about death. Humans have done lots of odd things to human remains. The Catholic church in the Middle Ages did some spectacularly morbid things with the skeletons of the diseased, creating whole death cults, bizarre works of art, and Read more…
History
The Victorian Internet
In the days of traveling by horse and sailing ships, it could take months to get a message to someone. You’d send a letter, and it may or may not arrive due to bandits and shipwrecks and other perils, and Read more…
Psychology
The Will to Meaning
I was just looking through my collection of quotes (I read a lot of ebooks, and highlight/annotate them like crazy) and thought I would share my favorite psychological paradigm: existential analysis. I get to ramble about something I love, and Read more…