What have you recently finished reading?

I’ve been plunging deep into some histories of clothing from the Victoria & Albert Museum. The two I’ve finished were 18-Century Fashion in Detail, by Susan North, and Chinese Dress in Detail, by Sau Fong Chan. They are beautiful and fascinating, and Chinese Dress in Detail is particularly good — though both are just high-level surveys, and constrained by what’s been preserved, what the V&A holds, etc, etc.

I definitely want to read more of this series.

What are you currently reading?

As usual, I’ve started several hares at once. I just started on The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker (more informative subtitle “The story of Britain through its census since 1801”), by Roger Hutchinson, and I’m enjoying that quite a bit. So far it’s mostly talking about the history of the census, rather than strictly speaking what it tells us, but I’m enjoying it a lot.

I’m also reading Christianna Brand’s Cat and Mouse, which is set in Wales and evokes the place quite well (in part because it’s always raining), but so far I’m not really enjoying it. In part it’s the melodramatic tenseness, I think — just not what I enjoy at the moment when I pick up a classic mystery. Not enough distance from the awfulness.

I’m also partway through Eleri Lynn’s Underwear Fashion in Detail, also from the V&A like the books mentioned above, and a reread of Vivian Shaw’s Dreadful Company, having belatedly heard there was a new book coming out (which was duly preordered, just in time, and awaits me after I reread the others).

What will you be reading next?

I don’t know, but probably Daniel M. Ford’s Advocate, T. Kingfisher’s Hemlock & Silver, and a couple of other books that are on my Bookspin Bingo card on Litsy. I started Courtney Smyth’s The Undetectables last week and didn’t vibe with it, but I’m going to give that a bit more of a shot before I decide whether to drop it or just put it back on my TBR for later.