Daily Life in Johnson's London by Richard B Schwartz.
Which Johnson, you might ask (with trepidation)? Well, the author apparently assumes that when the names "Johnson" and "London" are connected, that it must be clear which one he means. After all, there can hardly be more than one Johnson ever associated with the city of London. that would make no sense whatsoever. London's only been there ~20 centuries, after all.
Seriously, I'm up to chapter 7, and I have yet to note any mention of just what Johnson is being discussed. And the same is true about just about every other person mentioned in the book. The author clearly assumes that if you are reading the book, you already know who these people are, and what they are famous for.
Well I haven't got a fraking clue who these people are.
And the book doesn't do much of anything to clear it up. Why then am I reading it? How did I even get it? I don't actually know how I got it. It just appeared among my books. Which I assume someone just left it behind someplace, and it got mixed in with my stuff by accident. Why I'm reading it, it's a short book, and I was hoping to learn a little more about what life was like in London in the 18th-19th centuries. The book is only really covering the latter half of the 18th century, but it has a number of interesting things to say about that. The biggest shortcoming of the book being the author's assumption that the reader has a solid background in who the relevant people of the time and place are.
