News about The Dirt on Clean

Clean, as The Dirt on Clean is called in Britain, has just been released in paperback, with a charming new cover of a flapper drying her fanny.

Clean was recently judged one of the 10 best history books by The Independent newspaper.

Historia Brudu, to give the book its Polish title, is a best-seller in Poland, where it has just been published.

International Editions

The Dirt on Clean has been published in Canada (Knopf Canada, Fall 2007), the U.S. (Farrar Straus, Fall 2007), England, Ireland and Scotland (Profile Books, March 2008 — the prizewinning English publishers who brought you Eats, Shoots & Leaves), Australia, New Zealand, Brazil (Larousse, Fall 2008), Japan (Hara Shobo, Fall 2008) and Poland (Bellona, 2009).

2009 will also see publications in Italy (Odoya) and Korea (Wisdom Publishing).

Recent Media

Katherine wrote several pieces in The London Times online, timed for the release of the British paperback. They include a list of famously dirty aristocrats, a timeline of clean and dirty eras through the ages, and recession-proof tips for hygiene — for example, the Renaissance recipe for deodorant, which was crushed rose petals, applied to the underarms.

Claire Allfree, in Metro, in London (26 March 2009), wrote of the new paperback, "An entertaining book that really does belong in the bathroom."

Boyd Tonkin, in The Independent (27 March 2009), wrote, "Awash with smart allusions from the Iliad to Ian McEwan, absorbing on Roman water-heating or Victorian soap, this finely-illustrated survey turns on a foaming jacussi for the mind."

Katherine speaks Polish! Well, not really, but her interview in Historia, the Polish online history magazine, has been ably translated into Polish.