Sometimes it’s tough to read a historical monograph and keep my own training out of the mix. I’m simultaneously a professional historian, and not. I do not hold advanced degrees in History, but I work at bringing history alive for visitors at my museum job. I spend the winter reading and researching various topics to prepare for the oncoming season of programs. This year my main research thrust is immigration and domestic servants. That led me to reading Ordinary Days, Extraordinary Times: Morristown New Jersey’s […]
Brought to you in living color
You’ve probably already seen a review of Hyperbole and a Half. Cannonball Read 6 already has four, and Cannonball Read 5 had a few as well. But, from what I can tell, I’m the first to review it who only has a passing knowledge of Allie Brosh’s blog of the same name. I mean, I was aware of it. I had read about the Alots (who do not feature in the book), the helper dog and the simple dog, and about Brosh’s bout with depression. […]
The Servant Problem at Historic House Museums
In an attempt to get back to the full cannonball this year, I am including books I read for work. With that, I bring you Interpreting Servants’ Lives at Historic House Museums by Jennifer Pustz. This book grew out of Ms. Pustz’s dissertation and seeks to understand when, why and how domestic staff and servants are being interpreted in the Historic House museum field, and how museum professionals can expand their current offerings to offer a wider, and hopefully more accurate, view of the lives […]
A little Romance to start the CBR6
So, after a less than pleasant reading experience of Northanger Abbey, in which I never should have read the publisher’s note at the beginning as it ruined the plot of the novel for me and kept me from really sinking in to the narrative, at the end of last year (I couldn’t manage to get it finished and reviewed for CBR5, meaning I fell short of my revised goal, only 29/30) I decided that a quick read – a restart button – was in order. […]