How to Be a Brit

George Mikes provides a complete guide to the British Way of Life. Born in Hungary, he eventually spent more than 40 years in the field, and the fruits of his labor include insights on important topics including the weather, how to be rude, and how to panic quietly. How to Be a Brit contains Mikes’s three major works: How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable, and How to be Decadent. The advice includes such gems as how to plan a town (“Street names should be painted clearly and distinctly on large boards. Then hide these boards carefully”); queuing (“An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one”); and sex (“Continental people have sex lives: the English have hot water bottles”).