Pro anglofily

Following his hugely popular account of the previous 2000 years, John O'Farrell now comes bang up to date with a hilarious modern history asking 'How the hell did we end up here?'. "An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain" informs, elucidates and laughs at all the bizarre events, ridiculous characters and stupid decisions that have shaped Britain's story since 1945; leaving the Twenty-First Century reader feeling fantastically smug for having the benefit of hindsight.

Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words ('loaf') to cutting edge ('twittersphere') and spanning the indispensable words that shape our tongue ('and', 'what') to the more fanciful ('fopdoodle'), Crystal takes us along the winding byways of language via the rude, the obscure and the downright surprising. In this unique new history of the world's most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century ('roe', in case you are wondering).

As the late great Samuel Johnson sagely observed, 'When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.' When author Tom Jones found himself doing the same things week in, week out while living in England's treasured capital, he decided to heed Johnson's words and seek out a thing to do each day in London to make him fall back in love with the city. Here, in Tired of London, Tired of Life, Tom shares the fun, diverting and imaginative things that you can do to keep yourself amused in London. With seasonally appropriate suggestions for each day of the year, you can explore East London by canoe, search for Fagin's lair in Clerkenwell, play petanque in Southwark, seek out Aphrodite in the British Museum on Valentine's Day and enjoy a host of unusual ways to enjoy the capital. So grab your

'England is a country which requires more than a second look, an amazingly diverse place, offering almost-unlimited landscapes, culture and history, and a diversity of opportunities which is unrivalled anywhere else in the world.' Tired of London, Tired of Life author Tom Jones, has come up with another gem. In Mad Dogs and Englishmen he presents us with a seasonal snapshot of things to do in England at any time of the year, come rain or come shine. Using a mixture of unique seasonal events and interesting places to visit (all presented in attractive bite-sized entries), Mad Dogs and Englishmen is a browsable gift book aimed at those who are interested in getting to know their home country better as well as tourists seeking to make the most of their stay in England. In more than 220 pa

This is a unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: the media are ruining English; children can't speak or write properly anymore; and, America is ruining the English language. The tone is lively and entertaining throughout and there are cartoons from Doonesbury and The Wizard of Id to illustrate some of the points. The book should have a wide readership not only amongst students who want to read leading linguists writing about popular misconceptions but also amongst the large number of people who enjoy reading about language in general.

In "The English" Jeremy Paxman sets out to find about the English. Not the British overall, not the Scots, not the Irish or Welsh, but the English. Why do they seem so unsure of who they are? Jeremy Paxman is to many the embodiment of Englishness yet even he is sometimes forced to ask: who or what exactly are the English? And in setting about addressing this most vexing of questions, Paxman discovers answers to a few others. Like: Why do the English actually enjoy feeling persecuted? What is behind the English obsession with games? How did they acquire their odd attitudes to sex and to food? Where did they get their extraordinary capacity for hypocrisy? Covering history, attitudes to foreigners, sport, stereotypyes, language and more, "The English" brims over with stories and anecdotes

Go anywhere in the world today and you'll see or hear English in some form. It may not necessarily be the Queen's English that you're hearing, but it is, nevertheless, a form of universally recognised English - it is Globish. In his wonderfully witty and informative new book, Robert McCrum explores the curious history, vivacity and endurance of English and ponders why, while British and American empires have waxed and waned, the English language, freer from its moorings like never before, has quietly taken over the world.