A 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. A 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.&nbsp; Or so she thinks. One 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? Her 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.&nbsp;

Her Turn: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Ashenburg, Katherine

Dramas & Plays

Harper-perennial

There is no doubt that the death of a loved one has a profound - and unpredictable - effect on the lives of those left behind. Mourning is the price we pay for love. But how does anyone survive those first weeks, months, and even years after a death, and then eventually return to normal life? When her daughter's fiancé died suddenly, Katherine Ashenburg found herself drawn into the world of mourning customs. Finding little comfort in the stripped-down North American approach, she sought solace, and shaped the core of this much-praised book, by exploring the rich traditions that have sustained mourners in cultures around the world and across centuries. Intertwining anecdotes from past and present with her own story, Ashenburg uncovers the wisdom and creativity embedded in mourning rituals and their value in rebuilding those unravelled by loss. Somehow, as Ashenburg so deftly reveals, we find strength and go on living. With a new afterword by the author.

The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die

Self-Help

Death & Grief

Vintage Canada

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

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 to Josephine, "I will return in five days. Stop washing"? And why is the German term Warmduscher―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 The Dirt on Clean, her charming tour of attitudes toward hygiene through time. An engrossing fusion of erudition and anecdote, The Dirt on Clean 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.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Beauty, Grooming, & Style

NORTH POINT PRESS

For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a public two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, a scraping of the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the seventeenth-century aristocratic Frenchman, it meant changing his shirt once a day, using perfume to obliterate both his own aroma and everyone else’s, but never immersing himself in – horrors! – water. By the early 1900s, an extraordinary idea took hold in North America – that frequent bathing, perhaps even a daily bath, was advisable. Not since the Roman Empire had people been so clean, and standards became even more extreme as the millennium approached. Now we live in a deodorized world where germophobes shake hands with their elbows and where sales of hand sanitizers, wipes and sprays are skyrocketing. The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is Katherine Ashenburg’s starting point for a unique exploration of Western culture, which yields surprising insights into our notions of privacy, health, individuality, religion and sexuality. Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description. She reveals the bizarre rescriptions of history’s doctors as well as the hygienic peccadilloes of kings, mistresses, monks and ordinary citizens, and guides us through the twists and turns to our own understanding of clean, which is no more rational than the rest. Filled with amusing anecdotes and quotations from the great bathers of history, The Dirt on Cleantakes us on a journey that is by turns intriguing, humorous, startling and not always for the squeamish. Ashenburg’s tour of history’s baths and bathrooms reveals much about our changing and most intimate selves – what we desire, what we ignore, what we fear, and a significant part of who we are.

Knopf Canada

For the first-century Roman, being clean meant a public two-hour soak in baths of various temperatures, a scraping of the body with a miniature rake, and a final application of oil. For the seventeenth-century aristocratic Frenchman, it meant changing his shirt once a day, using perfume to obliterate both his own aroma and everyone else’s, but never immersing himself in – horrors! – water. By the early 1900s, an extraordinary idea took hold in North America – that frequent bathing, perhaps even a daily bath, was advisable. Not since the Roman Empire had people been so clean, and standards became even more extreme as the millennium approached. Now we live in a deodorized world where germophobes shake hands with their elbows and where sales of hand sanitizers, wipes and sprays are skyrocketing. The apparently routine task of taking up soap and water (or not) is Katherine Ashenburg’s starting point for a unique exploration of Western culture, which yields surprising insights into our notions of privacy, health, individuality, religion and sexuality. Ashenburg searches for clean and dirty in plague-ridden streets, medieval steam baths, castles and tenements, and in bathrooms of every description. She reveals the bizarre rescriptions of history’s doctors as well as the hygienic peccadilloes of kings, mistresses, monks and ordinary citizens, and guides us through the twists and turns to our own understanding of clean, which is no more rational than the rest. Filled with amusing anecdotes and quotations from the great bathers of history, The Dirt on Cleantakes us on a journey that is by turns intriguing, humorous, startling and not always for the squeamish. Ashenburg’s tour of history’s baths and bathrooms reveals much about our changing and most intimate selves – what we desire, what we ignore, what we fear, and a significant part of who we are. From the Hardcover edition.

SOFIE & CECILIA

A surprising, rich and beautiful first novel about women's friendship for readers of Paula McLain and Elena Ferrante, by a bestselling non-fiction author who has brilliantly turned her hand to fiction. In Sofie &amp; Cecilia, beloved non-fiction author and journalist Katherine Ashenburg draws upon her formidable skill and maturity as a writer to craft an extraordinary and splendid debut novel. This is the story of a lifelong female friendship, set in the fascinating art world of Sweden between 1900 and 1940, just as modern art and the beginnings of the Scandinavian mid-century modern design movement were inspiring a creative revolution across northern Europe. Loosely based on the lives of celebrated artists Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn ("Nils Olsson" and "Lars Vogt" in the novel), Ashenburg transports us behind both the public and domestic scenes--and canvasses--of these larger-than-life men to reveal the lesser-known but equally astounding and rich stories of the women who married them: restlessly creative artist-in-her-own-right Sofie Olsson, and fiercely private and intelligent curator Cecilia Vogt. Here is a gorgeous gem of a book: surprising, unique, layered with insight into the nuances of female friendship as it stretches, changes, and deepens in unexpected ways over a lifetime. Woven effortlessly through this tapestry, like a beautiful motif, is absorbing detail about Scandinavian painting, design, and textile work; European history and sexual politics; the country life, city salons, vibrant art, and folklore of Sweden; and the secrets and challenges of bright, talented women juggling marriage, career, individual aspirations, and family life inside an artist's household in the early twentieth century.

Sofie & Cecilia

Literary

When 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. 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.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

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 Warmduscher--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 Clean, her charming tour of attitudes to hygiene through time. 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, Clean considers the bizarre prescriptions of history'sdoctors, the hygienic peccadilloes of great authors, and the historic twists and turns that have brought us to a place Ashenburg considers hedonistic yet oversanitized.

When 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.
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.

Social Sciences

Winner of The Ontario Historical Society’s Fred Landon Award for Best Regional History. With 300 photos and 11 maps. A work of unexpected delights and surprises: here is a one-of-a-kind guidebook that pinpoints the best of Ontario’s architectural heritage in its most charming towns, offers tantalizing and informative details of provincial history, indulges the near universal vice of real-estate voyeurism, and beckons even the most reluctant to physical exercise. Katherine Ashenburg is our knowledgeable and charmingly opinionated companion on walking tours of ten small (populations 1000 to 27,000) Ontario communities that provide a rewarding variety of domestic and public architecture in a walkable compass. Each tour begins with a brief historical sketch of the town, then, with the aid of a detailed map, guides the reader/walker to some 60 sites over a leisurely but carefully plotted two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half hour stroll. We visit churches and jails, libraries and town halls, theatres and factories, and all manner of houses - homes of startling grandiosity and humble integrity. We become conversant with belvederes and ogee arches, Flemish bond and board and batten, at ease with Regency and Queen Anne, Italianate and Romanesque. And along the way, Ashenburg reveals the town’s true personality, its distinctive architectural styles, forms and materials, and the genius, ambition, and vanities of its founders and builders. Every town - Perth, Picton, Cobourg, St. Mary’s, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Merrickville, Port Hope, Paris, Stratford and Goderich - is a day’s excursion from Toronto by a car or public transit; most are day-trips from either Ottawa or London. Over 300 black and white photographs capture the highlights; 11 maps show the way. For easy reference, there is a helpful, illustrated Guide to Historical Styles and an exhaustive Glossary of Architectural terms - everything from Apse to Voussoir.

Going to Town: Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario

Travel

Canada

MacFarlane, Walter & Ross

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ashenburg, Katherine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ashenburg, Katherine

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ashenburg, Katherine. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Her Turn: A Novel

The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

Sofie & Cecilia

The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die

The Dirt on Clean: An Unsanitized History

The Mourner's Dance: What We Do When People Die

Going to Town: Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario