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This was fun to read.
If you, like me, are a Downton Abbey fan and you’re waiting for the first episode of the show’s last season like a kid awaits Santa on Christmas, this book is a must read for you.
Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff is a short and little in appearance house manual, but for fans of the show it is a wonderful voyage to the downstairs Downtonian world. Being that is was written by Mr. Carson himself, it is impossible not to feel like you can hear him reading the book to you as you read.
The manual contains a series of instructions, directions and guidelines for those who aspire to perform correctly their duties as servants of the estate, with dignity and efficiency.It gives you an insight on how Downton Abbey runs thanks to the downstairs team. The infinite set of tasks and the detail of how they have to be performed. The book also comes with illustrations that are impeccably and very detailed hand drawn, adding more enjoyment to the readers’ experience with this book.
Even though this manual is for running a fictional household in the 1920’s, some of these instructions and procedures can be adopted in our modern times.
What I liked about the way Mr. Carson wrote this book was that it reminds the reader of the meaning of the word servant. “Improvers of Life” is what Mr. Carson calls them. More about this on the full review on my blog.
As a fan of the show, I must confess that I’m more a team upstairs (Lady Mary is my alter ego), but reading this book gave me a wider and more clear idea of what the downstairs team does and how valuable and irreplaceable they are for Downton Abbey.
Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff is a must read for Downton Abbey fans. It is the perfect book to read while we wait for the final season premiere. It is definitely a remedy for the Downton withdrawal symptoms every fan is suffering from. Season 6, it will be bittersweet but I can’t wait. Julian Fellowes, if you ever read this: thank you
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Expected publication: November 25th 2014
I'm a big fan of the series, so when I saw this book come up on Netgalley I was simply delighted. Even more so, as this book focuses mostly on the running of the house and the different tasks for different members of staff.
I've always been a bit amazed by large houses like the one in Downton Abbey, and wondered about how hard it would have to be to keep everything running. If you, like me, have been curious to find out more about this, this book is highly recommended to you!
Written as if Mr. Carson wrote it, it handles all kinds of very important matters like a chapter on placing wine bottles the correct way. Like in the series Mr. Carson is very strict and wants to preserve the traditions as much as possible. It also includes time schedules so it would have been easy to fit in seven dress changings a day.
A very interesting account on living downstairs in Downton Abbey, and also a very nice book for fans of the show!
Moonlight Reader started the TBR Thursday, and I think it's a good way to a) show what new books I've got and b) confront myself with my inability to lower my TBR. In fact, since I started recording it, it has risen significantly. I get the feeling I'm doing something wrong here...
Not all my new books fitted into one post, so here's part two. Double the fun!
A Calculated Life and California are both Dystopian novels that seemed really interesting. I'm always on the look out for more good Dystopian novels (also outside the YA genre).
Magisterium: The Iron Trial I had seen on my Dashboard quite some times. Also, I was curious to try something from Cassandra Clare as some of my friends really like her other series.
Rust is a non-fiction about, ehm, rust. It seemed quite interesting when I requested it and it might turn out to be a really nice book I think.
The Palace Job is YA Fantasy. I actually quite liked the colour, and I was looking to expand more into the genre, so I was glad I found this book.
Last but not least, and not officially a part of this list is Downton Abbey: Rules for Household Staff. I was so excited because I was approved for this particular book, as I'm a great fan of the series, that I already started reading it even though I can't publish my review for another month. I just wanted to let you know that so far I'm really enjoying myself with it, despite the quite long chapter on wine.
