Hey everyone!  I’m finally ready to move to my new site!  I’m still tweaking it here and there, but it is now ready for public consumption.  Normally, a few words of farewell would be necessary, but since my new site is powered by WordPress it’s not that much of a farewell.  More like an upgrade.

So without further ado, my new website: www.whosabiblioaddict.com.

See you there!!!

On the awesomeness of Alison Bechdel and the history of sex in the twenty-first century:

Alison Bechdel, author of the incredible graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, has written the New York Times first graphic review of A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century: A Memoir by Jane Vandenburgh.

The review is below, but for a much larger, readable version of the review click here.

Last time I posted I said I was taking some time off to work on my new blog. Well, a little over – what? – two weeks later I’m still working. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is going to take longer than I anticipated. And frankly, I’m going through blog posting withdrawal.

Why is it when I’m taking a self-imposed break from blogging it always seems as if I can never run out of things to talk about? Everyday, it seems, I’m running across some item or other that makes me think: Oooh! This would make an excellent post.

So I’m returning prematurely here. I’m still working on the creation of my new blog which I really hope to have done in a couple of weeks at the most. Until then, I’ll be here posting because it seems that I just can’t stay away!

On taking a bit of learning and reading break:

A few days ago I got the bright idea that it was finally time I owned my own domain name. I’d been putting it off for about a year now, but now the time was ripe. Except…

I somehow managed to overlook the fact that I hadn’t the SLIGHTEST idea of what having my own domain entailed beyond having my the site address at “www.biblioaddict.com” as opposed to “baddict.wordpress.com”. It never occurred to me before, but there really is good reason why people get paid good money to do this. In short, I need time, folks, to figure what the hell it is I’m doing.

In addition to that, I’ve got a number of good books going at the moment. To name a small few: The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and Emma by Jane Austen.  Between all this great reading and trying to climb the steep learning curve of domain ownership, blogging time is definitely get cut into.

So, instead of leaving BiblioAddict abandoned for lack of posts, I wanted to let you all know that it’s all for the greater good!  Spring is just around the corner, you know?  Whenever the suns starts shining and the tempeture rises, I always get the urge to start reorganizing my apartment and moving stuff around.  Apparently, that includes my blog.

So, I’ll be back!  Bigger and better hopefully.   In the meantime, happy reading everyone.  See you soon!

On His Dark Materials, the great love story:

I have been putting this off for some time now because, truthfully, no amount of words could express just how much I loved His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.

Before reading this trilogy, I wasn’t sure how I would respond to something that had been labeled children’s literature.  After reading The Golden Compass it was abundantly clear that I could at least greatly enjoy reading children’s lit.  Yet it wasn’t until about somewhere towards the end of The Subtle Knife that I learned it was within the realm of possibilities for me to actually love this trilogy.

A brief summary for those of you who may not be familiar: The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights) opens up set in an alternate universe similar yet incredibly different from our own.  The most noticeable difference is that people’s souls take the visible form of talking animals, called daemons.

The main character is Lyra, a precocious young girl who one day saves who she believes to be her uncle from being poisoned.  Soon after, her best friend Roger is kidnapped by “loppers” who, as rumor would have it, kidnap kids and take them to the North (pole) for weird experiments.  Lyra vows to save Roger and embarks on an adventure to do so that eventually takes her all the way to the world of the dead.

But more rests on Lyra’s shoulders than just the fate of her friend.  In fact, unbeknownst to her, the fate of entire worlds rest on her actions and the actions of another: Will, who is introduced in The Subtle Knife.

Words could not express how much I loved this series, so don’t be surprised if this is a pretty rambling post.  At the conclusion of The Amber Spyglass I hugged the book close to my chest, infinitely sad that it ever have to end (not to mention, sad too because of the bitter-sweet ending!)

I think it’s interesting that much has been made of the controversial religious aspects of the trilogy when it seems to me hardly anyone talks about what I thought was the central theme of the book.  It wasn’t God, it wasn’t religion, and it wasn’t even childhood, though those things do play a major role.  It was, simply put, love.  If nothing else, His Dark Materials is a love story.

And I’m not talking about the very real, heartrending love between Lyra and Will.  I’m talking about love as a force that drives most of the the plot and the action of the books.  Lyra’s quest to save her friend, a quest which takes all the way to the world of the dead speaks very clearly about the love that exits between friends.

Then there is complicated adult love (Mrs. Coulter and Asriel), love between mother and daughter, father and son, mother and son (Mrs. Coulter and Lyra, Will and his father, Will and his mother), and innocent romantic love (Lyra and Will).

The “temptation” that occurs in The Amber Spyglass is nothing more than a simple love story.  It is a description of what it’s like to feel that little prick in your heart for the first time, the glory and the pain.  It’s the story that tempts Lyra to see what’s already in her own heart – love for her own companion.  It’s the story that essentially saves the world from destruction and gradual disintegration.

But there’s more.  His Dark Materials is about love of life over fear of death, and knowledge over ignorance.  His Dark Materials invites us to remember that this life is beautiful and that we should take joy in being a part of this grand universe: the air, the trees, the grass, the clouds, the wind, the dirt, the mountains, the animals, us.  We are apart of one another, made up of the same atoms and that is a beautiful thing.  Flesh, Pullman says, is a gift and we should glory in it – not be ashamed of it.

*spoilers ahead!*

Of all the characters, I thought Mrs. Coulter and almost to the same extent Lord Asriel, was the most complicated.  She lies so well that I was often confused about what her actual motivations were.  The ending of course validates her love for her daughter, but I thought it unclear as to how much that love motivated her previous actions.  Did she really set out from the beginning to protect Lyra or was it all a lie as Lord Asriel assumes?  And just what would she have done when she reached for her gun if they hadn’t been interrupted?

As for Lord Asriel,  I found him the most inscrutable, which I suppose is very true to his character.  One of the weaknesses of the series is that it’s never really explained why he sets out to destroy the Authority or how he even gets the power to build the army that he does.

I also found it interesting how Will and Lyra in many ways mirrored Lord Asreal and Mrs. Coulter.  Both Will and Asreal are fierce warriors, and both Lyra and Mrs. Coulter are accomplished liars.  What was fascinating was that, through Will and Lyra you could see how Lord Asreal’s and Mrs. Coulter’s relationship might have been if maybe they’d trusted a litle more and been less cold and calculating.

And isn’t it funny how, in the end, both of these couples who mirror each other in so many ways, must part just as soon as they acknowledge that love?  Lord Asreal and Mrs. Coulter through death; Will and Lyra through the inconvenience of having to live in different worlds?  Perhaps, Pullman’s point here is that love is not easily found but it’s easily lost.  And that we should cherish every day we’re allowed to bask in the gift of love, even if it’s just for a moment.

In the end, after all the battles and all the journeys – the world is not saved through might and great thinking.  It’s saved through love.  Lord Asreal and Mrs. Coulter defeat Metatron through love.  Only that could have forced them to do what they did.  Love for their daughter and love for each other.  Finally, Will and Lyra stop the departure of dust with their love.

*spoilers ended*

So I could talk about the religious elements in the trilogy – the God, the Regent, the angels, the sin – and about what that all means, but I won’t because to me all that is incidental, though never uninteresting.  I don’t know Pullman’s mind but I suspect that he didn’t set out to write a political book so much as he did a love story.

Or maybe his intention was to do both.  I don’t know.  All I know is that I adored this trilogy.  It broke my heart (I cried and cried at the end!), but all great love stories do, if only because they have to end.

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Yearling Books / May 2003
$22.50

On pride, prejudice, Guitar Hero, a make-believe rock band, wearing “in the Library,” and how to properly butcher a book:

I know, I know. I ‘ve been pretty MIA of late, but if reading’s a good excuse then that’s exactly what I have – a good excuse.  I’ve been unable to pull my nose out of Pride and Prejudice long enough to sleep, much less post.

When I haven’t been devouring my very first Jane Austen book – and at this point it will not be the last – I’ve been, I’m almost sorry to say it, caught up with playing Guitar Hero: World Tour.  Our new favorite thing is to invite friends over for dinner on Friday nights and play Guitar Hero (for which we now have two guitars and mic) to the great annoyance of our neighbors, I’m sure.

Whoever invented that game is a genius.  If  you’ve ever rocked out to your favorite song with a broom for a guitar and a hairbrush for a mic, trust me, you’ll love this very addictive game.

But this is suppose to be about books!  I dug myself out of my little reader’s hidey-hole because I came across two bookish links which I wanted to share.  Perhaps one of these will make you smile on this very cloudy hump day here in D.C.

Via The Book Bench: Have you ever wandered between the aisles of your favorite used bookstore or library basking in the smell of leather binding, faded ink, and old yet dignified dust?  Have you ever wished you could carry that smell around with you wherever you went?

Well, wish no more, because CB I Hate Perfume has invented a perfume called “in the Library,” which purports to replicate the very smell of being in a library.  This sort of reminds me of that episode of “Seinfeld” in which Kramer comes up with the idea of replicating the smell of the beach: on the face of it, this seems like a pretty dumb idea.  After all, who wants to walk around smelling like old leather and dust?

As it turns out, maybe me.  And a whole lot of other people obsessed with that musty, dusty smell.  And if the perfume isn’t appealing enough, the home spray certainly is.  I may be ambivalent about putting that scent on my skin, but my home – my home is different beast altogether.

On another note, have you read George Orwell’s 1984?  I haven’t (it’s on The List), and according to a poll just held in the UK, a lot of other people haven’t either but like to pretend they have.

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four comes top in a poll of the UK’s guilty reading secrets. Asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they had not, 65% of respondents said yes and 42% said they had falsely claimed to have read Orwell’s classic in order to impress. This is followed by Tolstoy’s War and Peace (31%), James Joyce’s Ulysses (25%) and the Bible (24%).

Now, while I can’t claim to have lied about reading any of the above books, I can claim to have done this:

For anyone who has received a book as a gift with an ever-so-slightly thumbed feel to it, your suspicions are probably correct. A total of 48% of people admit buying a book for someone else and reading it first…

Would I be wrong if I said I do this just about every time I buy a book as a gift for someone? (Confession: I read more than few stories in Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhouser before I gave it to BibloGuy for whom it was originally intended.)  If the gift is a book I haven’t read the temptation is just too great!  I am, in my defense, very delicate with them – no cracked spines or dogeared pages – no sticky notes, even!

And yes, I along with 62% of the people in the poll, admit to turning the corner of the page to keep my place.  Francesca Simon, creator of the Horrid Henry children’s books considers dog-earring a mutilation. “I would never do that, what’s wrong with using bookmarks – tickets, pieces of paper?”

Well, I use those too.  Mine is probably a greater crime: I don’t dog-ear to keep my page – I have bookmarks for that – I dog-ear to mark favorite passages and lines.  Thus, a book I’ve particularly enjoyed could be mutilated on every other page by a little folded corner.  What can I say?  I like to butcher my books with a good, unabashed interactive read.  Besides, you know, the are mine.  Now, library books are a different story.

Now, back to the hidey-hole I go.  Hopefully, the next time I pop up it’ll be with a book review.  I’m working on it.

On seeing Watchmen, a feminist writer, an anti-feminist cop, and a couple of books in between:

BiblioGuy and I are dipping out after work to see “Watchmen” and then I’m off to St. Louis tomorrow morning to celebrate my grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary.  So I figure it’s best to get this week’s status update out of the way before it goes the way of last week’s (nonexistant) status update.

First things first, I’ve managed to finish two whole books. Wahoo!  Cue the confetti and the Rocky music.  The first one I finished last week: Katha Pollit’s Learning to Drive.  Remember when I wrote that I suspected it would be the perfect complement (antidote?) to Sloan Crosely’s funny but lacking in introspection I Was Told There’d Be Cake?  Well my suspicions were confirmed.

I’ve earmarked page after page of Learning to Drive.  I had no idea that Pollit is normally considered a feminist writer who was raised by Marxist parents.  When she didn’t have some very poignant things to say about aging as a woman (See: “I Let Myself Go”) and the exhilarating give and take between men and women (See: ” When All the Men Are Gone”), she wrote very entertainingly about her experiences in a Marxist book club and what she learned when she read her parent’s FBI file.

Speaking of feminism, let me digress for a just a bit to say that yesterday I read the most infuriating page and a half I’ve read in a very long time.  It was a page and half full of jokes about women as told by a misogynistic male cop in Roberto Bolano’s 2666.

Have you ever been so mad that you feel steam coming out of your ears?  Well then you know exactly how I felt.  I was unfortunate enough to read this when I was riding the bus home yesterday, and I’m sure the other riders were wondering why I was glaring at the page so furiously.

I’d provide a full excerpt, but really I don’t want to ruin your Friday.  Suffice it to say that all of the jokes were in the vein of, “How many parts does a woman’s brain have?”  Answer: “It depends on how hard you hit her.”

Yeah.

It’s been a while since I’ve despised a character as quickly and as violently as I did that unnamed cop.  Speaking of 2666, I may as well say that I’m almost finished with book 2, “The Part About the Murders.”  Honestly, I can’t wait, because the catalogue of the various young girls and women being murdered (ranging in ages from 9 -35 years old) is killing me.  It’s one heartbreak after another, compounded by the fact that few of the people in the novel who should care actually seem to.

On to that other book I finished: John Harwood’s The Seance.  This was an entertaining, quick Gothic read.  Still, there was something that I found vaguely disappointing about it.  I think I was hoping for a greater, more harrowing conclusion to the mystery than I received.  The ending, though it did tie up all of the loose ends, was kind of lackluster.  I was expecting a greater confrontation with the arch villain than the one I received.  But that’s all stuff for the review which I hope to do one day some time soon.

You already know from my last post that I’ve begun reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  I’m still not very far along so I don’t really have a comment on it yet.  I’ve also started reading The Best American Travel Writing ed. by Anthony Bourdain.

This morning I read “Next Stop, Squalor” by John Lancaster, in which he examines the moral questions surrounding a tourism company that offers tours of the Dharavi slum of Mumbai.  Is this exploitation or education?  Of hand, I would have said the former and a part of me still does.  The thought of western tourists venturing to a slum in India to gawk at its dwellers like an expensive trip to the zoo… it sticks in my craw.

But the founder of the tourist organization says that the idea isn’t to exploit the slum dwellers, but to “dispel the myth that people there sit around doing nothing, that they’re criminals… We show it for what it is – a place where people are working hard, struggling to make a living, and doing it in an honest way.”

Even if that is a bunch of scam talk (what I’d call “game”), Lancaster rightly points out that the criticism coming from many of Mumbai’s city officials and journalists is also questionable:

Surely their ire could have been better targeted at the municipal authorities who had failed to provide the community with basic sanitation.  I wondered whether the critics weren’t simply embarrassed by the slum’s glaring poverty – an image at odd with the country’s efforts to rebrand itself as a big software park.

I’ve also read a bit more of Stephen Pinker’s The Stuff of Thought.  He’s getting into the nitty-gritty of linguistics, and the growing use of linguistic jargon is starting to cross my eyes a bit, but I’m making it.  Slowly but surely.

Lastly, I’m thinking of starting Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. I know – as if I don’t have enough on my plate, but I have an opening for one more fiction book and if I’d done yesterday’s Booking Through Thursday this would’ve been at the top of my list. Either way, I won’t be able to make up my mind until Sunday, which is a ways off yet.

And that’s it guys and gals, excepting for the two magazines I also managed to finish which was like removing two M&Ms from a jar full – no effect whatsoever.  Eh, what can you do but keep reading, right?

Have a great weekend everyone!

On the Facebook network of Hertfordshire:

If I had posted last week’s Status Update like I should have, you all would know that I’ve started reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Somehow, all these years I skated by having never read a single book by Austen and, to be honest, never really having an interest in doing so until fairly recently.

Nevertheless, I’ve begun.  I’m not very far in so I don’t have an opinion to offer yet.  However, I just came across this wonderful website that hilariously condensed the entire Pride and Prejudice novel into Facebook status updates.

If you enjoy Facebook on any level, you’ll love it.  If you don’t, don’t have a Facebook account, or have no idea what status updates are you should probably ignore this. It’s totally frivolous.

	Charles Bingley is renting a house in Hertfordshire!
	Mrs. Bennet became a fan of Charles Bingley.
	Kitty Bennet can’t stop coughing!!!
	Charles Bingley is now friends with Mr. Bennet and Sir William Lucas.
	11 of your friends are attending Assembly at Meryton.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy is dreading this evening.
	Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet are now friends.
	Elizabeth Bennet is not handsome enough to tempt a certain gentleman. Ha!
	Mrs. Bennet had a most delightful evening!
	Mr. Bennet wishes that Mr. Bingley had sprained his ankle in the first dance.
	Elizabeth Bennet promises never to dance with Mr. Darcy.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy became a fan of Fine Eyes.
	Caroline Bingley is all astonishment.
	Lydia Bennet became a fan of Officers.
	Kitty Bennet became a fan of Officers.
	Caroline Bingley tagged Jane Bennet in her note Visit us at Netherfield.
	Jane Bennet finds herself very unwell.
	Elizabeth Bennet is going to stay at Netherfield with Jane.
	Louisa Hurst saw Elizabeth Bennet’s petticoat and is absolutely certain it was six inches deep in mud.
	Elizabeth Bennet is improving her mind by extensive reading.
	Charles Bingley created an event: Ball at Netherfield.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy is writing to Georgiana.
	Caroline Bingley has suggestions for Mr. Darcy’s domestic felicity.
	Elizabeth Bennet and Caroline Bingley are attending the event Take a Turn about the Room.
	Fitzwilliam Darcy feels the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.
	Elizabeth Bennet is back at home. Thank goodness!
	William Collins tagged 7 of your friends in his note I Propose Myself the Satisfaction of Waiting on You and Your Family.

I’ve only posted the Status Updates only as far as I’ve gotten in the novel itself. If you’re looking for the entire thing, it can be found here. Enjoy!

Via The Book Bench:

The warehouse, whose lease recently ran out, once contained as many as five million books destined to be sold online.

After the lease expired, the firm running the secondhand book business moved out, leaving it full of books.

Managers of the industrial estate invited people to help themselves so they can free up space at the site.

‘We thought it was a sensible idea to give people the opportunity to come along and choose themselves a book or two and help us clear the warehouse.

‘The response has been unbelievable since we opened it to the public. It’s like a swarm of locusts.

Ok.  The fact that books are strewn all over the floor and that people are walking on some of them is a tragedy.  But… a warehouse full of free books?!  Does anyone have a ticket to Bristol they’re willing to give away?  Oh, and a trunk the size of a U-haul truck?

The full article can be read here.

On things I’ve learned about Britain, good and bad:

I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve never been to London.  Never even gotten close, truly.  In fact, the closest I’ve gotten is a British expat with whom I worked when I was high school.

But, you know I’ve heard things.  Or seen things, rather.  Like say, the Austin Powers movies.  Or the BBC tv shows my mom’s so fond of like the “Johnathan Creek” mystery show – has anyone else seen this? The protagonist, the eponymous Jonathan Creek, uses his background in magic to solve difficult mysteries. It’s great, although it was discontinued a few years ago -  and “As Time Goes By” with the always incredible Judi Dench.

I’ve read things too, like say the Elizabeth George Thomas Lynley series (which, once upon a time, was also supposed to become a BBC show – don’t know if it ever did though), although I stopped reading it a few years ago, just before George apparently killed off a main character.  I just wasn’t very interested continuing with it after that.  Besides, I’d already moved on to P.D. James.

And, of course, we can’t forget the classic stuff like a lot of Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dickens, Bronte, Collins… well, you get the drift.

And what have I learned?  Well, from what I could gather, Brits apparently have a bad reputation for their teeth.  See: the scene in the second Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me (the best of the series, in my opinion – though BiblioGuy and I get into heated debates about this) when Austin breaks the mirror with his infamous yellow teeth:

And that they drink a lot of tea.  See: well, history.  And that their food isn’t very good.  See: Just about every response I’ve gotten from an American when I’ve asked what they thought about Britain.  Without fail, the answer is always, “It was great.  The food was pretty bad… but, it was great!”

And that the weather isn’t always so hot.  In fact, a lot of the time it’s rainy or cold or cloudy or some combination of the three.  And they have lovely accents.  See: Every Brit I’ve ever heard speak.  They could make the word “potty” sound like gold, or “love.”  And that they have a witty, cutting sense of humor.  See: just about every Brit I’ve ever heard crack a joke, including the ex-pat, recently-made American citizen Christopher Hitchens.

But, really. Is all this true?  Aren’t these just stereotypes in the same way that the morbidly obese, loud-talking, obnoxious, culturally ignorant, hamburger or hot dog eating, soda guzzling American is?  When I was in Japan, I once asked a Japanese man at dinner if he’d ever like to visit America.

He replied, “No.  Too much violence.  I might get in the middle of a car chase or a shoot-out or something.”  I would have laughed if he weren’t dead serious.  Apparently, he’d seen too many Hollywood action movies, no?  I couldn’t really blame him, though I was somewhat surprised given that he’d somewhat sneeringly asked earlier if all Americans thought all Japanese people knew karate.

I knew better.  But if I based all that I knew of Japanese culture on the movies and cartoons I’ve seen in my life then, yeah, I’d probably think that every Japanese person starting from the age of five had a set of nunchucks in their back pocket and killer round-house kick.

My point is, I was looking to get a more in depth view of London than I’d previously gotten.  Which is why I read Sara Lyall’s The Anglo Files.  That, and because her interview with NPR was entertaining and intriguing.  And also because I’ve always been fascinated by how Brits and Americans can seem so similar in a lot of ways and yet be so very different.  It’s like Bizzaro world, which personally I think is absolutley cool.

So what did I learn from The Anglo Files?  Mostly stuff I already knew.  That Brits really do – or, at least used to – have what we American’s would call “unhealthy” looking teeth:

Many older Britons grew up regarding anything other than basic dentistry – the kind that prevents all your teeth from falling out, and that’s about it – as excessive self-indulgence.  They are still suspicious of and even repulsed by American teeth, their unnatural sparkle and aggressively expensive eveness, their self-regarding sheen; away from London such teeth would seem as obvious and as fake as bad breast implants.

And Brits really do have a biting, though self-deprecating sense of humor, evidenced in the notorious personal adds in the London Review of Books.

The tradition began with the first submission the London Review received when it began to accepting personals, in 1998: “67 year-old dis-affiliated flaneur picking my toothless way through the urban sprawl,” the ad said, “self-destructive, sliding towards pathos, jacked up on Viagra and on the lookout for a contortionist who plays the trumpet.”

… …

“Tell me I’m pretty, then watch me cling, ” one woman declared.  There are many allusions to the heartbreak of failed former relationships: “My favorite Ben & Jerry’s is Acid Broiled Bones of Divorce Lawyer,” one ad said.  Some are just funny. “Woman, 38. WLTM man to 45 who doesn’t name his genitals after German chancellors, “one reads. “You know who you are and,  no, I don’t want to meet either Bismark, Bethmann Hollweg, or Prince Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, however admirable the independence he gave to secretaries of state may have been.”

On a side note, there is, by the way, a collection of these hilarious personal adds called They Call Me Naughty Lola, which came out last year. (Yet another covet for the TBR pile.)

I also learned that the weather really isn’t all that great, that Brits drink a lot (of alcohol), especially their politicians, and that the food really isn’t all that great, though things have begun to change in the last decade.  In short, I didn’t really learn anything I didn’t already know.  Although, the comparatively raunchy newspapers was definitely news to me.

Still, I found The Anglo Files an enjoying read, if not terribly informative.  Lyall is a funny sometimes witty narrator, despite feeling a little forced at times.  Many of the reviewers on Amazon (and Barnes & Noble) thought Lyall was a bit too negative in assessment of Britain.  And, despite the fact that I did enjoy it, I have to say that I agree.

Lyall moved to Britain over twenty years ago because her husband is British, but it’s very difficult to see from reading The Anglo Files why she’s still there.  Surely there must be something she likes about the country.  Something more than her husband and children.  But if there is, she doesn’t mention it in The Anglo Files.  If she hadn’t said as much, I would have thought she’d lived there for a year, then promptly hightailed it out of there.

So yes, The Anglo Files could have been more even-handed, but as an introductory guide to British culture this wasn’t a bad place to start.  It does make me wish I had a British friend willing to read this so they could share their thoughts.  Of course, I could go to Britain on day and find out for myself.  Believe me, it’s on my list of things to do.

The Anglo Files by Sarah Lyall
W. W. Norton & Company / Aug. 2008
$24.95 / 289 pps.

P.S. See. I keep my promises… Sometimes.