Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 20, 2012 Stephanie rated it liked it · review of another edition

I WANT to give this book a higher rating but sadly cannot.
My first critique is the title. This book was supposed to be about Highclere Castle and Lady Almina, but half of the book was written about Egypt, WWI, and several other tangential topics. This book was well researched but poorly written. Not only was it tangential, but skipped from here to there(chronology wise), jumped around a lot (location), and was very repetitive. Simply put, it was not well written.
Nevertheless, I loved the use of ...more

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Jul 25, 2016 Christi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

I have wondered about what life was like in this time period for this group of people. This answered the question while also giving me a glimpse into the world stage, which I think could not realistically be separated from the lifestyle. I would love to read a companion book portraying different views from those in other "classes". I loved knowing that this was non-fiction although I wonder if any of it was powdered over to help soften some situations. I loved seeing a good story about people in ...more

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Mar 12, 2012 Lisa of Hopewell rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2012

Went back to this and enjoyed the parts about WWI/hospital. So like Downton Abbey! So many nice tie-ins (names, events, etc). Forgot all about the King Tut tie to the family though.

Taken this down to 3 stars--the writing is amateurish. Still interesting, but could have used a better editor. Sometimes she mentioned things that "People Like Us" would understand but the hoi polloi may not...

One minor mistake--royal weddings have only taken place at Westminster Abbey back in the mists of time and th ...more

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