Should you read North and South without seeing Richard Armitage play Mr. Thornton first? Our hosts say: mmmmmmaybe not. But we still (mostly) enjoyed reading it, and giving a hearty middle finger to Charles Dickens, whose fault it is that the book ends so abruptly.

Other works mentioned:

 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class; 

Sven Beckert  Empire of Cotton: A Global History

 Mary Brinker Post, Annie Jordan

Blood Brothers musical.

Death Comes to Pemberly miniseries

Babylon Berlin

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unjustly-overlooked-victorian-novelist-elizabeth-gaskell