Downton Abbey

Because Downton Abbey was on our tv two years after it had been on US TV, and because it was late at night, I had downloaded the series. And now I am showing it to my stepson, who watches TV here after supper in the evening.

Ruby, in Canada, is also watching the series (it must be on netflix, which she gets, since downloading is illegal there).

The producer of the series has some novels available on Scribd, which I am starting to read.

No, it is not just nostalgia: I just finished the book Snobs, and learned about a lot of the subtleties of various levels of British culture in the 1970s.

It is not my culture, so I found it interesting.

I am more interested in how and why people act why they do: anthropology/sociology.

One reason I dislike "modern" novels on the best seller list, even when they are supposed to be "historical" novels, is that they all seem to be written in the same voice, of an educated ivy league graduate. I start reading, and then hear this voice in my mind, and throw the book away, because I know it will give me no real insight into people, how they thought or how they lived: even if it is about minorities, foreigners, gays or "poor" people, they seem to think and act like every other character in these best sellers: as if they all were ivy league graduates.