Böcker av George Mikes

First published in 1963, the original blurb reads: "This may be a unique generation, which has so widely felt the full range of suffering. It is common in London or New York to spend evenings in the company of people who were prisoners of the Japanese, of Hitler, of the Hungarian Communists - or of their own stress and breakdown. Prison, in some form, is the symbol of it.This is an attempt to discover what has been learnt of this whole range of prison experience - taking prison to be any form of enforced separation from the world of normal life. Thus there are chapters on mental asylum and hospital, as well as political prison and concentration camp. And the emphasis is on the return rather than the experience. What is the lesson of that time of separation? Having travelled to the end of fear, was it the death of fear - or its exposure? That is the question each author was invited to answer."

If you want to succeed here you must be able to handle the English sense of humour.So proclaims George Mikes' timeless exploration of this curious phenomenon. Whether it's understatement, self-deprecation or plain cruelty, the three elements he identifies as essential to our sense of humour, being witty here is a way of life. Perfectly placed as an adopted Englishman himself, Mikes delivers his shrewd advice - helpfully divided into 'Theory' and 'Practice' - with a comic precision that does his chosen country proud. Drawing on a trove of examples from our rich comic canon, from Orwell ("e;Every joke is a tiny revolution"e;) to Oscar Wilde, this is the essential handbook for natives and foreigners alike. Mrs Kennedy: "e;I don't think, Mr Churchill, that I have told you anything about my grandchildren."e;Winston Churchill: "e;For which, madam, I am infinitely grateful."e;

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!

The indispensable manual for everyone who longs to attain True Britishness George Mikes's perceptive best-seller provides a complete guide to the British Way of Life. Having been born in Hungary, he eventually spent more than forty years in the field, and the fruits of his labour include insights on important topics including the weather, how to be rude and how to panic quietly. Loved by readers and authors alike, How to Be a Brit contains Mikes's three major works -- How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. If you're British, you'll love it; if you're a foreigner, you'll appreciate it.How to plan a town: "e;Street names should be painted clearly and distinctly on large boards. Then hide these boards carefully."e;Queuing: "e;An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one."e;Sex: "e;Continental people have sex lives: the English have hot water bottles."e;

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.