Between You and I

"A deeply-felt defence of proper English usage" Robert McCrum, Observer "Witty and provocative" Sunday Herald "Authoritative, funny and always completely correct." Good Book Guide A waspish review of the massacre of the Queen's English, introduced by Britain's best-loved radio journalist John Humphrys. Here is a new, enlarged edition of the book described by The Independent as a "cool, disdain…

Bob Wilson's Ultimate Collection of Peculiar Sporting Lingo

Have you ever flashed at a googly in the corridor of uncertainty while on a sticky dog? Maybe you've seen someone hit a mulligan out of the screws to grab a birdie at Amen Corner, or had to deal with a falling leaf from God while trying to survive the Group of Death? The world of sport has its own language, wonderfully rich in strange words and phrases, whose origins often stretch back centuries.…

Googlies, Nutmegs & Bogeys: The Origins of Peculiar Sporting Lingo

'Wilson conducts an engaging romp through sport's more colourful terminology ... buy it to be entertained.' Independent 'Brilliant. I loved it!' David Seaman 'A cracking read' Daily Express     'A lesson in the language of sport from a man that should know' Kevin Keegan OBE The world of sport has its own language, rich in strange words and phrases whose origins often stret…

Introducing Camus

Albert Camus, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, always refused the existentialist label with which he is usually associated. For Camus, the world was 'absurd', without purpose, leading only unto death, yet all the more invigorating precisely because of this. Long associated with Left-Bank intellectuals, Camus' real emotional centre was always his native Algeria and the poverty of h…

Introducing Camus: A Graphic Guide (PAPERBACK)

  Compact INTRODUCING guide to the nobel-prize winning intellectual A friend of Sartre who used to hang out on the Boulevard Saint Germain, the second youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize, a journalist, French resistance fighter and human rights campaigner, Albert Camus, always refused the existentialist label with which he is usually associated.  For Camus, the word was ‘absurd…

Introducing Chomsky

Compact INTRODUCING guide to the seminal linguist and irrepressible critic of right-wing America.Linguist Noam Chomsky maintains that the human brain has an innate language faculty, and that part of this biological endowment is a 'universal grammar', a theory of principles common to all languages. Thus, all human languages and the ways in which children learn them are remarkably similar. Chomsky's…

Introducing Chomsky: A Graphic Guide (PAPERBACK)

Compact INTRODUCING guide to the seminal linguist and irrepressible critic of right-wing America.Linguist Noam Chomsky maintains that the human brain has an innate language faculty, and that part of this biological endowment is a 'universal grammar', a theory of principles common to all languages. Thus, all human languages and the ways in which children learn them are remarkably similar. Chomsky'…

Introducing Joyce: A Graphic Guide (PAPERBACK)

  Compact INTRODUCING guide to the great modernist One of the most famous and influential novels of the 20th century, Joyce’s Ulysses is often described as the most difficult novel in the English language. He ranks alongside such figures as Picasso, Schoenberg and Stravinsky as one of the great pioneers of modernism. But a myth of Joyce's "difficulty" has taken root, discouraging man…

Introducing Linguistics

Language, it is widely understood, both sets us apart from our fellow creatures and identifies us as uniquely human. We use language to establish and maintain group membership, to express our emotions, to amuse ourselves and to entertain others, to convey information serious and trivial and exist in a world populated by others. Linguistics is the discipline which studies the structure an…

Introducing Linguistics (pocket-sized version)

  Language, it is widely understood, both sets us apart from our fellow creatures and identifies us as uniquely human. We use language to establish and maintain group membership, to express our emotions, to amuse ourselves and to entertain others, to convey information serious and trivial and exist in a world populated by others. Linguistics is the discipline which studies the structure and…