I often find myself longing, in a very romanticized way, for various things from bygone eras: dresses for day, gentlemen who stand when a lady enters the room, child-free weeknight cocktail hours. In reality, I’m not sure I want to wear a dress every day or be distinguished solely for my gender or imbibe a highball everyday at 5:00 pm, but the idea is appealing, if only because it’s so far removed from the reality of my daily post-postmodern technology-immersed life.

I feel like I have found a kindred spirit in Lesley Blume; Blume writes a column for the Huffington Post titled “Let’s Bring Back,” where she muses about various things she would like to, well, bring back. Blume has turned those posts into a book, also titled “Let’s Bring Back: An Encyclopedia of Forgotten-Yet-Delightful, Chic, Useful, Curious, and Otherwise Commendable Things from Times Gone By,” an alphabetized compilation of things she would like to see back in favor: answering services, good Cracker Jack prizes, liveried footmen, Polaroid cameras, white tennis balls at Wimbledon. Not all of her choices are material; she includes “gossip” and “elocution” (which I think are more closely related than we like to admit) and phrases like “Mind your own beeswax” and “slimming regime.”

Blume clearly longs for a more genteel, elegant time; her entry for “Fingerbowl Champagne Glasses” is a good illustration of what she wishes we could bring back: “They are very Fitzgeraldian; common champagne flutes, by comparison, feel rather 1980s and invoke all sorts of  Working Girl office party imagery.”

This is a terrifically fun coffee table book for anyone who feels she would have been more at home in 1920 or 1860 than 2010, or who just loves the idea of a life free of conference calls and celebrity tabloid websites and fast food restaurants. “Let’s Bring Back” is currently available for preorder at Amazon for $13.57.