George Mikes says, 'the English have no soul; they have the understatement instead.' But they do have a sense of humour - they provide it by buying over three hundred thousand copies of a book that took them quietly and completely apart, a book that really took the Mikes out of them.

George Mikes has written many successful books on a variety of interesting subjects, but one so successful as those on the subject most central to his own experience: his adopted country. The first of these came out in 1946: the ever famous "How to be an Alien." Later he enlarges the picture with "How to be inimitable" and "How to be Decadent." All three books were illustrated by the master of the cartoonists art, the late Nicolas Bentley. Here they are, all in one volume, which will make life much easier for today's would-be Brits than it was for those who pervaded them. It is said that a...

Contemporary / British English This is the funniest book that you will read about English people! Why are the English different from Europeans? George Mikes' book describes the strange things the English do and say. And the English don't get angry when they read the book. They love it! You will too!