Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22439 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"'Wonderfully entertaining...Every page pulses with humour, ephemeral research and irresistible nuggets of useless information... social history at its most accessible.' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail 'Thoroughly novel and refreshing...I loved his book enormously.' Andrew Marr 'Makes the banal and everyday surprising and often riveting... Fascinating stuff, and Moran delivers it in a relaxed and often hilarious style.' Daily Telegraph 'Splendidly entertaining...a deft, clever and endlessly fascinating example of social history at its best.' Dominic Sandbrook"

Juliet Gardiner
`A wonderfully insightful probe into the habits and rituals that have made up daily life in Britain since the Second World War. Almost nothing escapes Joe Moran's penetrating gaze; an inspired anthropologist of the ordinary, and often very funny, he turns his readers into informed observers, and gives an enhanced understanding of what we do every day
without a second thought and why we do it. You'll never eat a slice of toast, join a queue or send an e mail in the same way again.'

Dominic Sandbrook
`Queuing for Beginners is a splendidly entertaining book. Joe Moran take a simple but wonderfully imaginative idea, following an ordinary working day from breakfast to bedtime, and uncovers the twentieth-century history of the mundane rituals through which we structure our lives. Nothing escapes his gaze, from cereal packets to chain pubs, and the result is a deft, clever and endlessly fascinating example of social history at its best.'

Customer Reviews

A great book - ideal for a gift
I really enjoyed this book. It literally had me laughing out loud on the tube. It's insightful and well written. It's also an easy read and great for dipping in and out of.

I'm buying a copy for my dad as I know he'd like it. I'd say it's an ideal book for people interested in history, sociology or just British culture. It's also an easy read and not at all academic or dry.

Entertaining read
An original book. Contents organised around people's typical days, but I find the chapters are great fun to dip into - and are the right length for that. They are in effect essays. I've learnt plenty of stuff from this book in terms of social history, sociology - but that makes it sound dry and academic, which it isn't. It's a whimsical, diverting, read.

Essential reading for inhabitants and immigrants
This wonderful book should be compulsory reading for all UK citizens and those wishing to become one - or indeed those visiting and wondering why we are like we are.

Well written, well researched - a gem.

Rob Sawyer