Books: The Dirt on Clean

The Dirt on Clean: an Unsanitized History by Katherine Ashenburg.  Well, this is one of those delightful single-topic books of social history that have been trendy for several years now.  I love 'em, and I'm not tired of 'em at all.  This was a particularly well written, nicely paced sample of the genre.  It moved along at a good clip, the transitions between sections didn't feel too jarring to me, and the layout really added something (a lot of little inset quotes from various sources, and some interestingly placed illustrations that broke up the text here and there).  I think this would be a good book for fantasy writers to pick up (at least, those writing fantasy set in countries similar to Europe/post-colonial North America), particularly for its lovely list of works cited.  Some are quite standard and others seem (to me at least) reasonably obscure and academic.
( Further, slightly unfocused, blather... )