"The long week-end" is Robert Grave's and Alan Hodge's evocative phrase for the period in Great Britain's social history between the twin devastations of the Great War and World War II. With brilliant wit and trenchant judgments they offer a scintillating survey of seemingly everything that went on of any consequence (or inconsequence) in those years in politics, business, science, religion, art, literature, fashion, education, popular amusements, domestic life, sexual relations--and much else.

First published in 1943, The Reader Over Your Shoulder remains required reading for anyone who wants to write more clearly and artfully. Editor Alan Hodge and I, Claudius author Robert Graves enjoin the writer to write as if "a crowd of his prospective readers . . . were] looking over his shoulder," anticipating possible questions and criticism. They identify the most common blunders writers make and lay out forty-one principles--twenty-five dealing with clarity of statement, sixteen with grace of expression--while showing us how to avoid them. Their insights are as fresh and...