{"title":"Katherine Ashenburg","description":"\u003cp\u003eDive into the insightful world of Katherine Ashenburg, exploring the nuances of everyday life with wit and intelligence. Perfect for readers who enjoy thoughtful explorations of social history and human behaviour.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"clean-book-katherine-ashenburg-9781846680953","title":"Clean","description":"Napoleon once wrote in a love letter to Josephine 'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' To smell like a human was not always the misdemeanour it is today. Body odour was in fact an important factor of sex and courtship, considered by some to be a powerful aphrodisiac, as we see in Napoleon's letter. Contrary to what we like to think, no bodily odour is innately disgusting, instead it is our noses which adapt to fit our beliefs.   The Romans would bathe in company and daily. Later, Europe underwent four centuries without a bath. Was it the threat of diseases like syphilis that it feared in the soapy water? Religion links the act of washing with forgiveness and regeneration. We wash the bodies of dead loved ones because somehow we imagine it as the end of the old and the beginning of the new. The history of washing our bodies reveals much about our intimate selves, about how we want to be seen and what we desire most...  In this gripping new history, Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, hospitals, battlefields and makeshift water closets. In the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the eccentricities of famous bathers and the hygienic peccadilloes of great writers we see the twists and turns that have brought us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49519120482577,"sku":"GOR001787151","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49643600609553,"sku":"GOR002107622","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50127804072209,"sku":"CIN1846680956G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":51333187567889,"sku":"CIN1846680956A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846680956.jpg?v=1751060306"},{"product_id":"clean-book-katherine-ashenburg-9781846681011","title":"Clean","description":"'I return to Paris in five days. Stop washing.' So wrote Napoleon to Josephine in an age when body odour was considered an aphrodisiac. In stark contrast, the Romans used to bath for hours each day. Ashenburg's investigation of history's ambivalence towards personal hygiene takes her through plague-ridden streets, hospitals and battlefields. From the bizarre prescriptions of doctors to the eccentricities of famous bathers, she presents us with all the twists and turns that have led us to our own, arbitrary notion of 'clean'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543181730065,"sku":"GOR001293218","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49636122525969,"sku":"GOR003826943","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52956732883217,"sku":"GOR002117335","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1846681014.jpg?v=1751442900"},{"product_id":"dirt-on-clean-book-katherine-ashenburg-9780865476905","title":"The Dirt on Clean","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote to Josephine, I will return in five days. Stop washing? And why is the German term \u003ci\u003eWarmduscher\u003c\/i\u003e--a man who washes in warm or hot water--invariably a slight against his masculinity? Katherine Ashenburg takes on such fascinating questions as these in \u003ci\u003eThe Dirt on Clean\u003c\/i\u003e, her charming tour of attitudes toward hygiene through time. An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote, \u003ci\u003eThe Dirt on Clean \u003c\/i\u003econsiders the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49557912092945,"sku":"GOR002149566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50458315653393,"sku":"CIN086547690XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51694379008273,"sku":"CIN086547690XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/086547690X.jpg?v=1751445594"},{"product_id":"mourner-s-dance-book-katherine-ashenburg-9780865477056","title":"The Mourner's Dance","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen her daughter's fiancé died suddenly, Katherine Ashenburg was surprised to see how her daughter intuitively re-created the traditional rituals of mourning, even those of which she was ignorant. Intrigued, Ashenburg began to explore the rich and endlessly inventive choreographies different cultures and times have devised to mark a universal and deeply felt plight.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Contemporary North American culture favors a mourning that is private and virtually invisible. But, as Ashenburg reveals, the grieving customs of the past were so integrated into daily life that ultimately they gave rise to public parks and ready-to-wear clothing. Our keepsakes, prescribed bereavement garb, resting places, mourning etiquette; and ways of commiserating from wakes to Internet support groups remain clues to our most elemental beliefs, and our most effective means of restoring selves, and communities, unraveled by loss.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49651862765841,"sku":"GOR002796686","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50371746234641,"sku":"CIN0865477051G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50371751641361,"sku":"CIN0865477051VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51009020166417,"sku":"NIN9780865477056","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0865477051.jpg?v=1750850363"},{"product_id":"her-turn-book-katherine-ashenburg-9780063084445","title":"Her Turn","description":"\u003cp\u003eA delightful novel in the vein of Younger and The Unbreakables, with a hint of Nora Ephron, about a journalist who stumbles into an unusual relationship with the woman married to her former husband.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA journalist in Washington, DC, Liz has turned lemons into lemonade after her husband walked out on her a decade ago. She likes her life--she's the editor of My Turn, a weekly column in which readers write about their lives, has a few romantic nibbles--some better than others--a good relationship with her teen-aged son, and has come to terms with the shock and heartbreak of her divorce. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOr so she thinks.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOne day at work, she receives a letter for the column she can't ignore, because it's written by her ex-husband's current wife--AKA the other woman. It is the beginning of an unexpected correspondence between the two women--but only Liz knows the truth about their connection. Could it be she still cares? How far will she take this unusual relationship? And what happens if the truth comes out?\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHer Turn is an immensely readable, joyful novel about fidelity and forgiveness that explores one woman's second act in life, and the ties that still bind her to the first. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49928590786833,"sku":"GOR011798446","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49931439341841,"sku":"GOR013330771","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50169760088337,"sku":"CIN0063084449G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50761404481809,"sku":"CIN0063084449VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0063084449.jpg?v=1751355710"},{"product_id":"dirt-on-clean-book-katherine-ashenburg-9780374531379","title":"The Dirt on Clean","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA spirited chronicle of the West's ambivalent relationship with dirt\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The question of cleanliness is one every age and culture has answered with confidence. For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, scraping the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the aristocratic Frenchman in the seventeenth century, it meant changing your shirt once a day and perhaps going so far as to dip your hands in some water. Did Napoleon know something we didn't when he wrote Josephine \"I will return in five days. Stop washing\"? And why is the German term \u003ci\u003eWarmduscher\u003c\/i\u003e--a man who washes in warm or hot water--invariably a slight against his masculinity? Katherine Ashenburg takes on such fascinating questions as these in \u003ci\u003eDirt on Clean\u003c\/i\u003e, her charming tour of attitudes to hygiene through time.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e What could be more routine than taking up soap and water and washing yourself? And yet cleanliness, or the lack of it, is intimately connected to ideas as large as spirituality and sexuality, and historical events that include plagues, the Civil War, and the discovery of germs. An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote, \u003ci\u003eDirt on Clean\u003c\/i\u003e considers the bizarre prescriptions of history's doctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized.\u003c\/p\u003e ly connected to ideas as large as spirituality and sexuality, and historical events that include plagues, the Civil War, and the discovery of germs. 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