So, I keep getting compliments on this site’s new layout, probably because I didn’t design it (much). Wordpress, the free blog program you see before you, is one of those apps that has a fervent, not to say rabid, community of folks who gleefully contribute free help, plugins, and, ahem, layouts. Open source software at its best.

Now that it’s so much easier for me to blog, naturally, I haven’t. We writers have this theoretical obligation to buy food and other luxuries for our young children, and that will cut in on one’s blog.

But we writers also do lots of research, especially when we’re also aspiring homesteaders, and it’d be a shame not to share the spoils when I return from the hunt.

So, for the time being, expect shorter Look What I Found blogs, instead of Agonizingly Crafted Aren’t I Brilliant Blogs. (Especially now that I’ve taken a sabbatical from The Fabricated Press. Feel free to protest in dismay.)

Speaking of finds, allow me to present a free map of Dickens’ London. I spent the better part of my tender years with characters that roamed Covent Garden, Pall Mall, and Hyde Park, without the faintest idea of where we were going. This map is like finally knowing what “4th down” means, except much better. If you favor Dickens (or Doyle, or Chesterton, for that matter), quit reading this and go.

Strange that I was more familiar with 19th century London than the layout of my nearest city (whatever it was, there in the Sprawl). Is there any great literature rooted in Alexandria, VA? Someone check.

Of course, a taste for Victorian English literature is like a taste for building stone walls. Cheap, but labor-intensive. If you’re not entirely a wage slave and will get more than a Scrooge half day for Christmas, what better time to rediscover Dickens?

Still not convinced? Well, that’s why I couldn’t resist including a little Chesterton on Dickens.