false 3 1 false false Sat Jan 17 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 18:13:27 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 21:27:04 -0800 2009
I think that any American who is already interested in British culture will find this book a mix of genuinely interesting observations and somewhat cliched ramblings about familiar topics like the incomprehensibility of cricket and unpronounceable aristocratic names. The early chapter on sex education in British schools is positively hair-raising, as is the chapter on British dentistry. (I expected that last to fall into the cliche category, but it was just too genuinely horrifying.) I got many laughs out of the section on the British talent for self-deprecating humor, and the chapters on parliament managed to clear up a few things that have long seemed puzzling to me.

I suppose I'd take the book with a bit of a grain of salt - it's Lyall's very personal take on a particular slice of British society that she's spent a decade living in, and she describes it nicely, but I wouldn't take this book as the final word on the British character. ]]>