Once, when I picked up a book from the local library, the librarian asked to tell her what I thought about the book when I would bring it back. Well, why not write a few lines about all the books I read so everybody could see what I thought about it? I'm often also happy to have friends recommend a certain book or tell me this and that is not really worth reading. I won't comment about the tons of books I have read so far, but about books I read from now on.
| highly recommended | sehr empfohlen | |
| good reading | gutes lesematerial | |
| average | durchschnittlich | |
| not too interesting | nicht allzu interessant | |
| recommended not to read it | empfehlung das buch nicht zu lesen |
 |
|
|---|---|
| title | How to be a Brit |
| author | George Mikes |
| ISBN-10 | 0-241-97500-X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-241-97500-8 |
| ASIN | |
| rating | |
| date | 2020-Mar-01 |
How to be a Brit actually is a collection of three books written by George Mikes over the time of thirty years (1940-ies to 1970-ies): How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. All three books are full of British humor and make fun of the difference between the British and foreigners. But the books differ considerably, it is very obvious how Mikes, originally a Hungarian, having come to the Great country of Britain as a young man and staying on, has changed over the years and become a true Brit himself. While the first book is written with the eyes of a foreigner and shows in a very humorous way how Brits are different, the last book clearly is written with the eyes of a Briton and shows in the same humorous way where foreigners differs. There is also some repetition among the books, which can even be good: one joke from the first book I didn't get till the topic was picked up again in the next book.
Unfortunately there are many jokes I did not really get, possibly due to some special meaning of some expressions (which not even my dictionary was willing to share with me), probably due to not being able to see some references to certain events or people (Neither am I British, nor is English my native language. I only have lived in the UK myself for a very short time many years ago and even though I am definitely no youngster any more, that was years after the last book of the three was written.) Nevertheless, many of these very short stories are entertaining. It is also refreshing to see something where people clearly can freely make fun of themselves and their peers, something which these days (I write this in 2020) is more and more drowned in the overwhelming movement of "political correctness".
