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I've just finished reading "The People of the Abyss" by Jack London, he of "White Fang" fame. A classic book.
It's non-fiction, and was a big eye opener to the appalling conditions endured by the people of London's East End in 1902.
Jack London lived with them and as one of them while he researched this book, sometimes sleeping in workhouses, sometimes on the street (but not at night, the police invariably woke up and moved on people sleeping on the streets at night, but not in the day, so the parks were full of the sleeping poor in the daytime. A bit catch-22 - you need sleep to be fit to find work, but can only look for work in the day, when you are too tired, from being awake all night) It was well written and I found it very hard to put down.
I'll give you a couple of quotes -
"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog".
“From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o’clock in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”
Barely more than a century ago...
It's non-fiction, and was a big eye opener to the appalling conditions endured by the people of London's East End in 1902.
Jack London lived with them and as one of them while he researched this book, sometimes sleeping in workhouses, sometimes on the street (but not at night, the police invariably woke up and moved on people sleeping on the streets at night, but not in the day, so the parks were full of the sleeping poor in the daytime. A bit catch-22 - you need sleep to be fit to find work, but can only look for work in the day, when you are too tired, from being awake all night) It was well written and I found it very hard to put down.
I'll give you a couple of quotes -
"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog".
“From the slimy, spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they cracked between their teeth for the kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread the size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and chewed them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o’clock in the evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, wealthiest, and most powerful empire the world has ever seen.”
Barely more than a century ago...
and an "easier" novel on the go but I fall asleep after a few pages these days...I also have craft reference books open and read little bits most days...several cooks books are that I've flicked through recently and a few silversmithing books...setting gemstones, 1000 pendants and a few others.
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