Shopping, Seduction and Mr. Selfridge by Lindy Woodhead

I am a complete sucker for books of T.V. programs, whether they are fictional adaptations, written especially for the series or history books. So, I was delighted to find this cheap on the old Kindle. I was not that horrified to find out the amount of liberties I.T.V has taken with historical fact, after a while you get used to it and I understand that taking Downton With Shops as truth is liable to make you look rather silly. No, it’s written as entertainment and it provides that much. 

The book too, is entertaining and quite well written. You can see that it is not supposed to be ‘serious’ history in that it doesn’t really contain a great deal of analysis, but that is hardly a flaw when it has so many interesting facts and anecdotes that give you a sense of the family and the business. I loved the number of personalities that filled the pages, and sometimes it is wonderfully relaxing to be entertained by tales of rich people doing extravagant things and descriptions of crazy by-gone fashions.  The book was well researched and some of the anecdotes were quite personal. 

It did slightly nark me at times that she didn’t put references in the main body of the text, I think there is no excuse for not doing that with an ereader as it’s so easy to be able to flick back and forth between the references and the main body of the text. Also, the images and illustrations were at the end in a separate section, so I did think that they were missing until I finished the book and went ‘ah, so that’s what they looked like.’ But these were minor formatting points rather than big criticisms. 

Overall, I’m glad to have read it as it has given me a better insight into the background of the period and to a man who was such an interesting character, although in a way I am also quite sad to know how the story ends and hope that there is a happier ending for I.T.V’s Mr. Selfridge. 

What the world needs now, is hats, sweet hats

 I also enjoyed reading a little bit of history and have vowed to vary the all fiction all the time diet with some more of the historical stuff, as I know that I own a great pile of history books I haven't read either!