The London Lounge

To anyone interested in the subject of englishness I would recommend the book "Watching the English" by Kate Fox. She is an English social anthropologist who has written a very funny book for non-anthropologists. Yes, their is a chapter on dress. For anyone who enjoys Engish humor or television this book is a must.

She also wrote a similar book called "The Racing Tribe" for anyone interested in horseracing.

On the same topic, readers may like Sarah Lyall's The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). It is a very quick read if you skip the chapter on cricket, which seems to go on forever. Lyall is covers the U.K. for the New York Times, and her writing follows that style. Her analysis is not scholarship but observation. The only major the flaw was her acknowledgement of Maureen Dowd, whom I find abhorrent.

Hartline wrote:On the same topic, readers may like Sarah Lyall's The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British (W.W. Norton & Co., 2008). It is a very quick read if you skip the chapter on cricket, which seems to go on forever. Lyall is covers the U.K. for the New York Times, and her writing follows that style. Her analysis is not scholarship but observation. The only major the flaw was her acknowledgement of Maureen Dowd, whom I find abhorrent.

This book gives examples of what Kate Fox wrote about.

Jeremy Paxman has a similar book out and then there is David Horspool's recent book on English Rebels. A couple that I enjoyed very much are Edith Sitwell's English Eccentrics (recycled by other writers) and Colin Wilson's Misfits. However, for my money, it is difficult to beat biography and general literature to get an idea of Englishness; for so long, that is, as it is permitted to survive. I don't mean to raise hackles and stir polemics as I have fallen into a reflective mood about all the things that I miss - but an awful lot of them are gone and many of the rest threatened. However, Maynards still make Lion's sherbert lemons so the vandals have a way to go yet.
NJS

One title of this kind I have read with gusto is the out-of-print “Today there are no Gentlemen: The Changes in Englishmen’s Clothes since the War”, by Nik Cohn. As the title suggests, it deals specifically with sartorial topics. A further title I have read with pleasure is Hugh David’s “Heroes, Mavericks and Bounders: The English Gentleman from Lord Curzon to James Bond”. The Duke of Windsor’s “Memoirs” is also a great book.

Some books on Englishness written by non-English authors are also especially interesting. There is for instance one by the Dutch author Ian Buruma “Anlgomania: A European Affair” to which I have once referred in another thread. It contains an amusing chapter entitled “The man in the tweed coat”. There is also one by the German author Hans-Dieter Gelfert “Typisch English: Wie die Briten wurden, was sie sind”. - I should like to mention also some books by Nicholas Courtney, but this list seems to have no end...