First Published by Andre Deutsch 1946

Why are English people so different from other Europeans? This book tries to explain the strange things that the English do and say. "Penguin Readers" is a series of simplified novels, film novelizations and original titles that introduce students at all levels to the pleasures of reading in English.

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.

For a book published in 1946 you should expect all the obvious stereotypical examples of what foreigners expect the British to be like;
The quaint customs of greeting an acquaintance then asking how they are, to which only the formal reply 'I'm fine. How are you' should be given regardless of circumstance.
The English obsession with discussing the weather; and the social protocol of never contradicting anyone in polite conversation.
Then there is the ultimate British crime of having taken a delicate and refined beverage of tea, and through generations of ignorance and bad taste transformed it into the colourless and tasteless gargling-water we know today as English Tea.
Not to mention queuing, long awkward silences, buses and taxis, the list goes on and on.

You would expect a book published eighty years ago to now appear very dated and inaccurate.
I only wish to God it were...

(Nicolas Bentley's line drawings are a perfect accompaniment to the text.) ( )

Amusing account based on the author's experiences as an alien (refugee) in England --very funny illustrations