Reading / browsing books with lots of pictures is like, well, watching a good documentary on television. Or better?

These days I sometimes browse through Vic Gatrell’s City of Laughter, a very detailed account of the satirical prints published in London between 1760 and 1820: with lots of color-illustrations. The text is a bit too detailed for the level of my interest in 18th century London culture, but the prints are great. Review in the Guardian: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,,1933468,00.html.

Less academic – so closer to watching a documentary on tevee is The Seventy Great Journeys in History, published by Thames and Hudson. I love a book like this for the pleasurable way in which it fills gaps in my knowledge. And it’s nothing I have to know for any special reason.

I love clicking from one wikipedia-entry to another too as a way of discovering, filling in gaps and learning, but sometimes you just want to lie in a chair with a picture book.