From the Gilded Age through WWII, America was rife with ne’er-do-wells on a never-ending search for the next big score. Between 1850 and 1950 lawlessness melded with ingenuity, fueled by optimism and ruthlessness: America was dangerous, buzzing, and where opportunity came to take flight. The perfect conditions for swindlers.The gall and gumption of their hustles strain credulity. Fake diamond fields? War with Canada? Sir Francis Drake’s unclaimed fortune? Apparently, all was fair i...

Celebrate America’s outrageous competitive fire100 years of “see it to believe it” American contestsIncludes dozens of mind-blowing, little-known competitionsGorgeous design with 150 color and black-and-white photographs, plus sidebarsFrom marathon dancing, to food eating contests, beauty pageants, pole sitting, rotten sneaker contests, animal calling contests, phone-booth stuffing, outhouse races, and more, Americans love competing to see w...

Some people say sconn, while others say schown.He says bath, while she says bahth.You say potayto. I say potahtoAnd--wait a second, no one says potahto. No one's ever said potahto.Have they?From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of Received Pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father David travel the world in search of the stor...

In this unique new history of the world’s most ubiquitous language, linguistics expert David Crystal draws on words that best illustrate the huge variety of sources, influences, and events that have helped to shape our vernacular since the first definitively English word was written down in the fifth century (“roe,” in case you are wondering). Featuring Latinate and Celtic words, weasel words and nonce-words, ancient words (“loaf”) to cutting-edge words (“twittersphere”), and spanning the ...

A short and entertaining book on the modern art of writing well by New York Times bestselling author Steven PinkerWhy is so much writing so bad, and how can we make it better? Is the English language being corrupted by texting and social media? Do the kids today even care about good writing? Why should any of us care?In The Sense of Style, the bestselling linguist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker answers these questions and more. Reth...

Winner of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman PrizeWinner of the Longman History Today Trustees’ AwardLonglisted for the Orwell PrizeUnflinching and revealing, Black and British is a vital history that reveals how black British lives have been woven into the fabric of the nation for centuries – from Roman Britain to the Black Lives Matter protests.'Groundbreaking' – The Obser...

**'Tremendous' – The Guardian'I just fell in love with it' – Stephen King**Set in a reimagined 1950s Britain, Dominion is a gripping, haunting spy thriller – and a poignant love story. From the master of the historical novel and author of the Shardlake series, C.J. Sansom.Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war ag...

Do you know why……a mortgage is literally a death pledge? …why guns have girls’ names? …why salt is related to soldier?You’re about to find out…The Etymologicon (e-t?-‘mä-lä-ji-kän) is:*Witty (wi-te\): Full of clever humor*Erudite (er-?-dit): Showing knowledge*Ribald (ri-b?ld): Crude, offensiveThe Etymologicon is a completely unauthorized guide to the strange underpinnings of the English language. It explains: how you get from “gruntled” ...

Sussex, 1912. In a churchyard, villagers gather on the night when the ghosts of those who will die in the coming year are thought to be seen. Here, where the estuary leads out to the sea, superstitions still hold sway.Standing alone is the taxidermist's daughter. At 17, Constantia Gifford lives with her father in a decaying house: it is all that is left of Gifford's once world-famous museum of taxidermy. The stuffed animals that used to grace every parlour are out of fashion, leavi...

'A fascinating piece of social history' - Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times________In July 1969, while the Rolling Stones played a free concert in Hyde Park, Alan Johnson and his young family left West London to start a new life. The Britwell Estate in Slough, apparently notorious among the locals, in fact came as a blessed relief after the tensions of Notting Hill, and the local communit...

'It's a cliche to compare novelists to Jane Austen, but in the case of Jane Gardam it happens to be true. Her diamond-like prose, her understanding of the human heart, her formal inventiveness and her sense of what it is to be alive - young, old, lonely, in love - never fades' Amanda Craig'I love Jane Gardam, especially Old Filth' Nina Stibbe'Her work, like Sylvia Townsend Warner's, has that appealing combination of eleganc...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, read by Kristin Atherton and Michael Fox.A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURYFrom the Booker Prize-winning author of RegenerationShortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Costa Novel Award and the International DUBLIN Literary AwardThere was a woman at th...