Katherine Ashenburg's Books

Sofie & Cecilia

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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A surprising, rich and beautiful novel about women's friendship, from bestselling author Katherine Ashenburg. In Sofie & 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.

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Page Count

391

Publisher

Knopf Canada

Published Date

ISBN 10

0735272697

ISBN 13

9780735272699

Her Turn

A Novel

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Her Turn

A Novel

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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. 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.

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Page Count

235

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

0063084457

ISBN 13

9780063084452

The Dirt on Clean

An Unsanitized History

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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The Dirt on Clean

An Unsanitized History

By: Katherine Ashenburg

A spirited chronicle of the West's ambivalent relationship with dirt 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 Dirt on 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, 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.

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Page Count

353

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466867760

ISBN 13

9781466867765

Going to Town

Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Going to Town

Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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.

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Page Count

568

Publisher

McClelland & Stewart

Published Date

ISBN 10

1551996375

ISBN 13

9781551996370

The Dirt on Clean

An Unsanitized History

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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The Dirt on Clean

An Unsanitized History

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Page Count

353

Publisher

Macmillan + ORM

Published Date

ISBN 10

1466867760

ISBN 13

9781466867765

The Mourner's Dance

What We Do When People Die

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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The Mourner's Dance

What We Do When People Die

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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.

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Page Count

354

Publisher

Vintage Canada

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307398706

ISBN 13

9780307398703

The Mourner's Dance

What We Do When People Die

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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The Mourner's Dance

What We Do When People Die

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Page Count

354

Publisher

Vintage Canada

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307398706

ISBN 13

9780307398703

Going to Town

Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Going to Town

Architectural Walking Tours in Southern Ontario

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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Page Count

568

Publisher

McClelland & Stewart

Published Date

ISBN 10

1551996375

ISBN 13

9781551996370

All the Dirt on Getting Clean

By: Katherine Ashenburg

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All the Dirt on Getting Clean

By: Katherine Ashenburg

Cleanliness is next to godliness. At least that was the point of view espoused by John Wesley in 18th century England. But accounts of people bathing go back to the Bronze Age in the Indus Valley. All the Dirt on Getting Clean is a lively, informative exploration of the evolution of keeping clean. Starting with a number of myths about cleanliness, the author quickly establishes how our ideas have changed drastically over time, and how the definition of cleanliness in one part of the world may differ radically from another. There is just enough of a gross factor that the target audience of 9 to 12-year-olds will find the book as entertaining as it is enlightening. Colorful spreads, lots of sidebars, humorous illustrations, and photos make it ideal for browsing as well as reading in depth.

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Age

Page Count

109

Published Date

ISBN 10

1554517923

ISBN 13

9781554517923

Book's by Katherine Ashenburg

Sofie & Cecilia

Sofie & Cecilia

Her Turn

Her Turn

The Dirt on Clean

The Dirt on Clean

Going to Town

Going to Town

The Dirt on Clean

The Dirt on Clean

The Mourner's Dance

The Mourner's Dance

The Mourner's Dance

The Mourner's Dance

Going to Town

Going to Town

All the Dirt on Getting Clean

All the Dirt on Getting Clean

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