Download or read book Everything You Know About England is Wrong written by Matt Brown and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly entertaining read for anyone interested in English history and culture, this great myth-busting book takes you on a great ride through history and the national character. Think we're the land of Punch and Judy and Morris Dancing? Think again as both traditions started in southern Europe. Love Winston Churchill's wartime speeches? Well, they were recorded by an actor. Packed with details on real English history, the book explodes a range of national myths from bluebirds in Dover (they are not indigenous European birds) to the origin of the Cornish pasty (they might have been invented in London), from our stiff upper lip (an Americanism) to where you can spend a Scottish bank note. English arts, entertainment, food, drink, kings and queens, traditions as well as politics are all covered to give you a fascinating insight into the true England. Includes an additional chapter on Scottish, Welsh and Irish myths that we've been peddling in England for decades and need to be laid to rest.
Download or read book Everything You Know About English Is Wrong written by Bill Brohaugh and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2008-05-01 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I don't know how else to tell you this...everything you know about English is wrong. "If you love language and the unvarnished truth, you'll love Everything You Know About English Is Wrong. You'll have fun because his lively, comedic, skeptical voice will speak to you from the pages of his word-bethumped book." -Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, and Word Wizard Now that you know, it's time to, well, bite the mother tongue. William Brohaugh, former editor of Writer's Digest, will be your tour guide on this delightful journey through the English language, pointing out all the misconceptions about our wonderful-and wonderfully confusing-native tongue. Tackling words, letters, grammar and rules, no sacred cow remains untipped as Brohaugh reveals such fascinating and irreverent shockers as: - If you figuratively climb the walls, you are agitated/frustrated/crazy. If you literally climb the walls, you are Spiderman. - "Biting the Mother Tongue": English does not come from England. - The word "queue" is the poster child of an English spelling rule so dominant we'll call it a dominatrix rule: "U must follow Q! Slave!" - So much of our vocabulary comes from the classical languages-clearly, Greece, and not Grease, is the word, is the word, is the word. -Emoticons: Unpleasant punctuational predictions "Better plotted than a glossary, more riveting than a thesaurus, more filmable than a Harry Potter index-and that's just Brohaugh's footsnorts... Imean, feetsnotes...umfeetsneets?...good gravy I'mglad I'mjust a cartoonist." -John Caldwell, one of Mad magazine's Usual Gang of Idiots This book guarantees you'll never look at the English language the same way again-if you write, read or speak it, it just ain't possible to live without this tell-all guide. ("Ain't," incidentally, is not a bad word.)
Download or read book 1066 and All That written by W C Sellar and published by Hassell Street Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book The Shortest History of England Empire and Division from the Anglo Saxons to Brexit A Retelling for Our Times Shortest History written by James Hawes and published by The Experiment, LLC. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the most powerful country in the UK was forged by invasion and conquest, and is fractured by its north-south divide. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read. England—begetter of parliaments and globe-spanning empires, star of beloved period dramas, and home of the House of Windsor—is not quite the stalwart island fortress that many of us imagine. Riven by an ancient fault line that predates even the Romans, its fate has ever been bound up with that of its neighbors; and for the past millennia, it has harbored a class system like nowhere else on Earth. This bracing tour of the most powerful country in the United Kingdom reveals an England repeatedly invaded and constantly reinvented—yet always fractured by its very own Mason-Dixon Line. It carries us swiftly through centuries of conflict between Crown and Parliament (starring the Magna Carta), America’s War of Independence, the rise and fall of empire, two World Wars, and England’s break from the EU. We discover: why the American colonists of 1776 believed that they were the true Anglo-Saxons how the British Empire was undermined from within why Winston Churchill said the UK could only be saved by splitting up England itself and how populism spawned Brexit and its “new elite.” The Shortest History of England brings all this and more to prescient life—offering the most direct, compelling route to understanding the country behind today’s headlines.
Download or read book Icons of England written by Bill Bryson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-04-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This celebration of the English countryside does not only focus on the rolling green landscapes and magnificent monuments that set England apart from the rest of the world. Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic variety of personal icons, from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats, and from village cricket to nimbies. First published as a lavish colour coffeetable book, this new expanded paperback edition has double the original number of contributions from many celebrities including Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, Eric Clapton, Bryan Ferry, Sebastian Faulks, Kate Adie, Kevin Spacey, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Richard Mabey , Simon Jenkins, John Sergeant, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joan Bakewell, Antony Beevor, Libby Purves, Jonathan Dimbleby, and many more: and a new preface by HRH Prince Charles.
Download or read book Everything You Know About London is Wrong written by Matt Brown and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2016-07-21 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A highly entertaining read for anyone with even a passing interest in London's history. This myth-busting book takes you on a great ride through history and the city's character. Think that the tower that holds Big Ben is called St Stephen's Tower? Think again – it was called the Clock Tower until 2012 when it was renamed the Elizabeth Tower. Think that the Union Flag flying over Buckingham Palace means the Queen is home? Think again – it means that she's elsewhere, doing other Queenish things. Packed with details on real London history, it explodes a range of myths from the rumoured burial of Queen Boudica beneath platform 10 at King's Cross to the lamp on Carting (or 'Farting') Lane that runs on gas from the city's sewers. Myths regarding London's arts, entertainment, food, drink, kings and queens, traditions as well as politics are all covered, to give you a fascinating insight into the true capital.
Download or read book Everything You Know About God Is Wrong written by Russ Kick and published by Red Wheel Weiser. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 778 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the new mega-anthology from best-selling editor Russ Kick, more than fifty writers, reporters, and researchers invade the inner sanctum for an unrestrained look at the wild and wooly world of organized belief. Richard Dawkins shows us the strange, scary properties of religion; Neil Gaiman turns a biblical atrocity story into a comic (that almost sent a publisher to prison); Erik Davis looks at what happens when religion and California collide; Mike Dash eyes stigmatics; Douglas Rushkoff exposes the trouble with Judaism; Paul Krassner reveals his “Confessions of an Atheist”; and best-selling lexicographer Jonathon Green interprets the language of religious prejudice. Among the dozens of other articles and essays, you’ll find: a sweeping look at classical composers and Great American Songbook writers who were unbelievers, such as Irving Berlin, creator of “God Bless America”; the definitive explanation of why America is not a Christian nation; the bizarre, Catholic-fundamentalist books by Mel Gibson’s father; eye-popping photos of bizarre religious objects and ceremonies, including snake-handlers and pot-smoking children; the thinly veiled anti-Semitism in the Left Behind novels; an extract from the rare, suppressed book The Sex Life of Brigham Young; and rarely seen anti-religious writings from Mark Twain and H.G. Wells. Further topics include exorcisms, religious curses, Wicca, the Church of John Coltrane, crimes by clergy, death without God, Christian sex manuals, the “ex-gay” movement, failed prophecies, bizarre theology, religious bowling, atheist rock and roll, “how to be a good Christian,” an entertaining look at the best (and worst) books on religion, and much more.
Download or read book Tolkien s Art written by Jane Chance and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2001-10-26 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " J.R.R. Tolkien's zeal for medieval literary, religious, and cultural ideas deeply influenced his entire life and provided the seeds for his own fiction. In Tolkien's Art, Chance discusses not only such classics as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, but focuses on his minor works as well, outlining in detail the sources and influences–from pagan epic to Christian legend-that formed the foundation of Tolkien's masterpieces, his "mythology for England."
Download or read book Notes from a Small Island written by Bill Bryson and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie’s Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.
Download or read book Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong written by Paul Chaat Smith and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2009-05-01 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping work of memoir and commentary, leading cultural critic Paul Chaat Smith illustrates with dry wit and brutal honesty the contradictions of life in “the Indian business.” Raised in suburban Maryland and Oklahoma, Smith dove head first into the political radicalism of the 1970s, working with the American Indian Movement until it dissolved into dysfunction and infighting. Afterward he lived in New York, the city of choice for political exiles, and eventually arrived in Washington, D.C., at the newly minted National Museum of the American Indian (“a bad idea whose time has come”) as a curator. In his journey from fighting activist to federal employee, Smith tells us he has discovered at least two things: there is no one true representation of the American Indian experience, and even the best of intentions sometimes ends in catastrophe. Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong is a highly entertaining and, at times, searing critique of the deeply disputed role of American Indians in the United States. In “A Place Called Irony,” Smith whizzes through his early life, showing us the ironic pop culture signposts that marked this Native American’s coming of age in suburbia: “We would order Chinese food and slap a favorite video into the machine—the Grammy Awards or a Reagan press conference—and argue about Cyndi Lauper or who should coach the Knicks.” In “Lost in Translation,” Smith explores why American Indians are so often misunderstood and misrepresented in today’s media: “We’re lousy television.” In “Every Picture Tells a Story,” Smith remembers his Comanche grandfather as he muses on the images of American Indians as “a half-remembered presence, both comforting and dangerous, lurking just below the surface.” Smith walks this tightrope between comforting and dangerous, offering unrepentant skepticism and, ultimately, empathy. “This book is called Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong, but it’s a book title, folks, not to be taken literally. Of course I don’t mean everything, just most things. And ‘you’ really means we, as in all of us.”
Download or read book The Cottager in Town and Country written by and published by . This book was released on 1861 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Wicked Old Woman written by Ravinder Randhawa and published by Troubador Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sharply observed, witty and confident novel brimming with drama, masquerade and mischief. In a bustling British city, decked out with NHS specs and Oxfam coat, Kulwant masquerades behind her old woman’s disguise, taking life or leaving it as she feels inclined, seeking new adventures and venturing back into her past. Divorced from her husband, disapproved of by her sons, mistrusted by their wives, Kulwant makes real contact through a jigsaw of meetings: with the Punjabi Punk who dusts her down after a carefully calculated fall, with Caroline, her gregarious friend from school days, who watched over her dizzy romance with Michael the archangel; with Maya the myopic who can’t see beyond her weeping heart, and with Rani/ Rosalind who’s just killed a man... Entertaining and provoking, complex and playful, A Wicked Old Woman is the story of the eccentric Kulwant and the lives that cross and collide with hers as her past catches up to her and starts to mix with her present. Inspired by authors such as Philip Pullman, Yann Martell and Markus Zusak, this book will appeal to fans of contemporary fiction.
Download or read book Contemporary Plays written by Thomas H. Dickinson and published by Wildside Press LLC. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Contemporary Plays" features 16 plays by various dramatists, selected and edited by Thomas H. Dickinson and Jack R. Crawford. Facsimile reprint of the 1905 edition.
Download or read book War Peace written by and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Written in Fire written by Florence Ross-Church and published by . This book was released on 1878 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Spellhacker written by M. K. England and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2020-01-21 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of The Disasters, this genre-bending YA fantasy heist story is perfect for fans of Marie Lu and Amie Kaufman. In Kyrkarta, magic—known as maz—was once a freely available natural resource. Then an earthquake released a magical plague, killing thousands and opening the door for a greedy corporation to make maz a commodity that’s tightly controlled—and, of course, outrageously expensive. Which is why Diz and her three best friends run a highly lucrative, highly illegal maz siphoning gig on the side. Their next job is supposed to be their last heist ever. But when their plan turns up a powerful new strain of maz that (literally) blows up in their faces, they’re driven to unravel a conspiracy at the very center of the spellplague—and possibly save the world. No pressure.
Download or read book Everything You Know About Animals is Wrong written by Matt Brown and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2020-03-25 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A humorous and informative book, debunking a range of commonly held myths about animals. Camels store water in their humps and magpies love to steal shiny objects. Or do they? A must-read in the Everything you Know series, this book debunks a range of old-cod stories about animals in author Matt Brown's inimitable humorous and fascinating style. Covering everything from the myth that lemmings throw themselves off cliffs in suicide (they don't, but on occasion some just fall off) to the one about bats being blind (they're not, and they can see but use the more sophisticated echolocation for certain hunting). From head in the sand ostriches to cats landing on their feet, a wealth of information on our beloved pets to creepy crawlies and wild giants, this book will set the marvel of the animal word straight. Plus, there are special features on the odd diets of animals and how wrongly they are portrayed in the movies. All the old stories and myths about animals we've had since childhood are gleefully debunked in a hugely entertaining book.
