How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England

Readable, engaging, occasionally droll and zany - she tried the likely menstrual pads/tampons, etc that Elizabethans likely used and gave a quick consumer report, ditto for their bathing (or non-bathing) practices. You get the sense that these folks are long ago but not so very far away, apart from bear-baiting and beheading, of course. As they will say about the NFL and drone strikes in fifty years....

Enjoyable from cover to cover

Amazingly researched, some content hilarious. Very insightful. Recommend.

Informative and easy to read. Fun for any one interested in how we came to use--and still use--language.

I haven't totally finished the book, but I did put it down long enough to write a review. I am finding the book both fascinating and entertaining. It isn't all fluff either. Ruth Goodman has a point to make and she makes it clearly. This is a book about everyday people, not the stuff of the grand histories. You get a real feel for what life was like for the common citizen. It's the sort of book where you say, "Oh! So THAT"S where that comes from...."Also for me, as I'm reading, I hear the words in Ruth's own voice, so familiar from her television programs. That same exuberance and zest for her subject comes through.