A fashion editor's top books on shoes

Lisa Armstrong, fashion editor of the London Times, picked her top books on shoes.

Here are a few of her choices:

Children's and Household Tales by J. and W. Grimm

For the stories of Cinderella and the little elves: proof positive of the dark Freudian aspects of shoes.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

Flora’s telegram sums up every girl’s nightmare of packing the wrong footwear: “worst fears realised . . . send gumboots”.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

When the silly girl loses her only pair of serviceable boots, you know the game’s up.

Click here to read about Armstrong's other choices.

What? No "Song of Solomon" (7.1)?

Click here to read Armstrong's article, "How to get dressed - clompy shoes."

World Cup (and Posh Spice) fans may be interested to learn of Armstrong's view of England's relatively weak showing at (ahem) footie this summer in Germany: "if the England team had been as keen to outperform one another as the WAGs [ wives and girlfriends of the players], we’d have slaughtered the opposition."

For Joanna Trollope's review of Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers, ed. Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil, click here. "Shoes turn out to have more cultural significance than almost anything in our daily lives except language and money," Trollope writes, "—and even, at times, to transcend both of those."

--Marshal Zeringue