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Edi's Weekend Wave issue #1325

Hello and welcome to issue #1325 of Edi's Weekend Wave.

What a week! Unusual high temperatures in our region ( 37 °C = 98.600 °F)  did not encourage me to read books and to write reviews. Fortunately the temperature dropped to 24 °C = 75.200 °F on Friday after a night with rain, thunder and lightning. On Sunday my wife and I will go to Frankfurt by train and visit a fabric market. We need supply for new sewing projects. My next review should be finished in couple of days.


Edi's Guidepost


As I wrote above, most of the time it was too hot for any activities. So my reading progress as expected.

I finished

- no book

- 180 pages in Queen's Adept (digital 2012) [Amazon Kindle ASIN: B007ZLYBKM] by Rodolfo Martinez

No progress

- Tomorrow the Killing (pb ARC, 2013) by Daniel Polansky.

Enjoy your weekend ....

Honestly, I did not want to buy a book last week. But when I saw following book, I could not resist and paid 1.59 EUR (= 2.23 USD; 1.44 GBP).
London & Londoners in the 1850s & 1860s (digital; first printed in January 1924) [Amazon Kindle ASIN: B004TTX18Q] by Alfred Rosling Bennett. "'One of the best books about daily life in Victorian London.'
Alfred Rosling Bennett was born on 14th May 1850, and died aged 78, on 24th May 1928. He was a pioneering electrical engineer, remembered by the Times' obituarist for his groundbreaking work in telephony. In 1877, for example, he connected the Canterbury Music hall in Lambeth to the Queen's Theatre in Long Acre, via an overhead telephone line - the first such experiment carried out in London.

LONDON AND LONDONERS IN THE 1850s & 1860s is not, however, about Rosling Bennett's career. The book begins with his early childhood in Islington and focuses, almost exclusively, on daily life in the mid-Victorian metropolis. For example, selecting at random from the first few chapters, we learn about the interiors of omnibuses -- "The floor was covered with a thick layer of straw - in imitation of stage-coach practice - dry and clean every morning, but, as may readily be supposed, in wet weather damp, dirty, and smelly for the rest of the day. It was warm for the feet and kept out draughts, but promoted a too-evident stuffiness, especially when the let-down window of the door was up and the portal itself closed - there were no microbes to worry us in those days - and if a sixpence or a four-pennybit were dropped the chance of recovering it was small indeed." -- and the delivery of milk -- "Now and then, a man and girl driving a couple of very clean cows came round and drew milk from the udder straight into customers' jugs, or at least into a measure that was at once emptied into the jugs. That might be supposed to be a very direct, honest procedure, calculated to render adulteration laws vain and nugatory; but our milkman said that if people could only see the quantity of water 'them poor cows' were compelled to drink before starting, they would cease to wonder that the milk was so thin and blue." -- and the range of popular 1850s 'treatments' for cholera, namely "acorns, mustard plasters, castor-oil, laughing-gas, cold mutton broth, and hot mint-tea".

Victorian memoirs are often very dull things, regaling one with bland tales about meetings with famous folk, assorted commonplaces and platitudes. Rosling Bennett, on the other hand, from the vantage of the 'modern era' of the 1920s, applies a scientific rigour to the memories of his youth. He disdains singing his own praises for telling the reader about barbers touting "bear's grease" as the essential hair-oil (one enterprising hair-dresser even displaying a live bear to woo customers); or a detailed description of police uniform; or a paragraph about the itinerant sellers of draught excluders - the list is endless.

I have encountered no comparable work which conveys the same amount of intriguing information about daily life in the Victorian city, in such a concise and pleasurable manner. For that reason, I commend this book to the reader.

Lee Jackson" [Source]

I trust this description because the author Lee Jackson is a profound expert of Victorian London and the mastermind behind The Dictionary of Victorian London and The Cat's Meat Shop. I highly recommend to visit both if you have any interest in Victorian London.

I know that a lot of people do not like to wait for the next book in a series like me. Therefore I like releases like the following one. Now you can get all three books of The Bookman Histories  in a single volume (digital or paperback). The Bookman Histories (digital and paperback December 2012, 1022 pages) [Kindle ASIN: B00APOAD76; ISBN-13:  978-0857662996] by Lavie Tidhar. "Containing all three Bookman History novels: "The Bookman", "Camera Obscura" and "The Great Game".

When his beloved is killed in a terrorist atrocity by the sinister Bookman, young poet Orphan becomes enmeshed in a web of secrets and lies. Camera Obscura Can't find a rational explanation? Call in the Quiet Council! The mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter is one of their most valuable agents. A despicable murder inside a locked and bolted room on the Rue Morgue in Paris is just the start..."The Great Game": when Mycroft Holmes is murdered in London, it is up to retired shadow executive Smith to track down his killer...and stumble upon the greatest conspiracy of his life!" [Source]

I read and reviewed The Bookman in 2010.
My judgement:

On June 16th 2013 I posted my review of The Daedalus Incident 332 pages (digital 2013) [Amazon Kindle ASIN: B00B0SBF8W] by  Michael J. Martinez

Today I have good news for all US residents who are interested in this book. There is a giveaway of a paperback copy over at Far Beyond Reality.  For details please read

The Daedalus Incident by Michael J. Martinez (includes giveaway!)

Beside that Michael J. Martinez informed over at his blog that you can

Listen to a sample of the Daedalus audiobook!

I can't judge the quality because I do not listen to audio books. I'm a reader, not a listener.

In world full of rules, laws and formalism it is good to see that there are still people with a lot of imagination combination with bit of subversion.  The following post over at WebUrbanist shows several felicitous examples.

Unauthorized Installations: The Fine Art of Urban Subversion

Nowadays public toilets go without saying. Can you imagine a town Like New York or Paris or London without public toilets?There was a time where such facilities did not exist. Come with me back to London in 1851 when some entrepreneurs had an idea. Head over to The Cat's Meat Shop and read

Davi's Portable Urinal

Low tech cameras,do they still exist? This is a good question in a time where we are surrounded by digital cameras. Therefore I was really happy when I discovered the following post over at WebUrbanist. I like this kind of stuff a lot. have a look.

15 of the World’s Weirdest Low-Tech Film Cameras

I'm big fan of the Bryant and May Mystery series by Christopher Fowler. If you do not know the series I recommend to read the excellent article about the series by the author himself. Christopher Fowler started a new post series which I definitely will follow because it is about London. This is the link to the first post

Bryant & May’s Vanished London No.1

Nowadays many people do not value books. One reason may be the availability. In medieval times boos have been rare and libraries and monasteries tried to secure their written treasures. One of the most effective solution was to chain the books. For more information please read

A Book-Lovers Paradise by Anne O'Brien
over at English Historical Fiction Authors.

Zombies- I admit that I'm nit interested in zombie stories and movies.
I promised wife to go with her to cinema and see World War Z which will hit the cinemas next week. So I thought why not share the latest official trailer with you.

To think ....isn't it something to torture our brain?

B. F. Skinner, US psychologist (1904 - 1990)
Posted by ediFanoB at 10:30 PM
Labels: Alfred Rosling Bennett, Blogosphere, Books, Christopher Fowler, Lavie Tidhar, Lee Jackson, Michael J Martinez, Movies, Quotes 
Low tech film cameras - I need to check out that one.
World War Z was a decent entry into the genre. I'll have my review up on Monday. If your wife wants to see it, go see it.

June 23, 2013 at 12:07 AM Rosalie Skinner said...

I am interested to know what you think of World War Z. I went to see Superman the other night. Perhaps I should write a review too.
If producers employ 3D they should use a tripod. I found the shaking camera really annoying. Could be my age showing. hmm...
Enjoy the fabric fair. :)

June 29, 2013 at 1:23 AM ediFanoB said...

Sometimes it makes a lot of fun to turn form high tech to low tech.
I read and appreciated your World War Z review. My wife and I will see it next Monday.

June 29, 2013 at 4:20 PM 
Hello Rosalie,
I will let you knw what I think about World War Z.
I must say that I'm not a real fan of 3D movies except Avatar.
The fabric fair was good. We bought some tools and fabrics.
Now I work on a small shoulder bag. Will post some pictures when it it will be finished.

June 29, 2013 at 4:24 PM Edis Book Lighthouse Header Credits

Original image:

'Point Danger Light at Midnight' by Steve Swayne

Released under an Attribution-Share Alike License

Final creation by Shellie Nunn Layers of Thought