A Place For Everything

Marvellous … I read it with astonished delight … It is equally scholarly and entertaining. – Jan Morris
Quirky and compelling … She is a meticulous historian with a taste for the offbeat; the story of the alphabet suits her well … Fascinating. – Dan Jones * Sunday Times *
A library and academic essential. – Libby Purves * The Times *
One of the many fascinations of Judith Flanders’s book is that it reveals what a weird, unlikely creation the alphabet is. – Joe Moran * Guardian *
Judith Flanders’s A Place for Everything presents itself as a history of alphabetical order, but in fact it is more than that. Rather, as the title suggests, it offers something like a general history of the various ways humans have sorted and filed the world around them – a Collison –level view of the matter, in which alphabetical order is just one system among many.’ – Dennis Duncan * The Spectator *
Judith Flanders has a knack for making odd subjects accessible … In A Place for Everything, the popular historian paints alphabetisation as one of our most radical acts… Flanders retains a sense of fun … finds contemporary resonance in humanity’s search for order. * i *
Praise for Judith Flanders’ previous book, Christmas: A Biography: ‘A catalogue of colourful information, and as surprising an assortment of items as any you might find heaped up under a tree.’ – Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Observer *
A well-researched account. There are more footnotes here than there are presents under a Rockefeller Christmas tree. Indeed, the book is stuffed with facts – enough to satiate even the most ravenous postprandial taste for quizzing. * Sunday Times *
[An] entertaining biography … Following the fine tradition of light entertainment Christmas books, Judith Flanders provides lots of trivia … However, there is much more to it than that. Flanders is a respected social historian, best known for studies on Victorian life, and the strength of this warm book lies in its quiet erudition. * The Times *
Judith Flanders … likes Christmas (I think), but she loves reality and its awkward, amusing facts. (A previous book of hers, Inside the Victorian Home, is deep, bright and encompassing.) * New York Times *
The non-fiction I most enjoyed … an excellent subject, carried out with exemplary care and authority. – Philip Hensher * Spectator *

Judith Flanders is the author of the bestselling The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed (2003); A Circle of Sisters (2001), which was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award; the New York Times bestselling The Invention of Murder (2001), shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction; The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens’ London (2012), shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times History Book of the Year; The Making of Home (2014) and Christmas, A Biography (2017). In her copious leisure time, she also writes the Sam Clair series of comic crime novels.

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