What's Everyone Reading?

Blackleaf

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 9, 2004
49,913
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Meet Pete Brown - a man who has been both a phenomenal failure but also a success.

Pete Brown was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and much against his better judgment still supports its football team.

After graduating from the University of St Andrews, Pete spent ten years in advertising, helping some of the world’s biggest brands with their marketing strategy. Most famously, he persuaded Heineken to ditch its ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’ slogan just weeks before it was named the most successful advertising slogan of all time. He also worked on Stella Artois’ Reassuringly Expensive campaign, for which he wrote several award-winning papers proving its effectiveness.

After looking for a book that explained the British love for beer but not being able to find it, Pete wrote Man Walks Into A Pub: A Sociable History of Beer (2003). It sold so well that it was nearly turned into a BBC TV series, but was pipped at the final commissioning meeting by a series about mountains. Mountains.

Shakespeare's Local (2012), about the remarkable history of one London pub, is one of his three follow-up books which have all been critically well received, as well as appearing across the national media. Shakespeare’s Local was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week at launch in December 2012.

Shakespeare's Local



Welcome to the George Inn near London Bridge; a cosy, wood-pannelled, galleried coaching house a few minutes' walk from the Thames. Grab yourself a pint, listen to the chatter of the locals and consider this: who else has made this their local over the last 600 years?

Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims almost certainly drank in the George on their way out of London to Canterbury. Shakespeare may well have popped in from the nearby Globe for a pint, and we know that D ickens definitely did. Mail carriers changed their horses here, before heading to all four corners of Britain -- while sailors drank here before visiting all four corners of the world...

The pub, as Pete Brown points out, is the 'primordial cell of British life' and in the George he has found the perfect case study. All life is here, from murderers, highwaymen and ladies of the night to gossiping pedlars and hard-working clerks. So sit back and watch as buildings rise and fall over the centuries, and 'the beer drinker's Bill Bryson' (TLS) takes us on an entertaining tour through six centuries of history, through the stories of everyone that ever drank in one pub.


Historic: The George Tavern near London Bridge in Southwark
 
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Ludlow

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 7, 2014
13,588
0
36
wherever i sit down my ars
I checked out two books this morning at the library that I've been wanting to read. One is 'The Gilded Age" by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner. A fictional work about the industrial age in the United States I believe, The other book is an auto biography by Ms. Karen Armstrong called 'The Spiral Staircase". I've read many of her other works been wanting to read this one.
 

coldstream

on dbl secret probation
Oct 19, 2005
5,160
27
48
Chillliwack, BC
I'm rereading David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest.. his illuminating tome on the personalities and forces that drew the U.S. into the Viet Nam fiasco. I read it decades ago (it was first released in 1972).. but it's still fascinating.. and topical.. to the pitfalls and perils of the modern world.

AND..

Meet Pete Brown - a man who has been both a phenomenal failure but also a success.

Pete Brown was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and much against his better judgment still supports its football team.

After graduating from the University of St Andrews, Pete spent ten years in advertising, helping some of the world’s biggest brands with their marketing strategy. Most famously, he persuaded Heineken to ditch its ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’ slogan just weeks before it was named the most successful advertising slogan of all time. He also worked on Stella Artois’ Reassuringly Expensive campaign, for which he wrote several award-winning papers proving its effectiveness.

After looking for a book that explained the British love for beer but not being able to find it, Pete wrote Man Walks Into A Pub: A Sociable History of Beer (2003). It sold so well that it was nearly turned into a BBC TV series, but was pipped at the final commissioning meeting by a series about mountains. Mountains.

Shakespeare's Local (2012), about the remarkable history of one London pub, is one of his three follow-up books which have all been critically well received, as well as appearing across the national media. Shakespeare’s Local was BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week at launch in December 2012.

Shakespeare's Local



Welcome to the George Inn near London Bridge; a cosy, wood-pannelled, galleried coaching house a few minutes' walk from the Thames. Grab yourself a pint, listen to the chatter of the locals and consider this: who else has made this their local over the last 600 years?

Chaucer and his fellow pilgrims almost certainly drank in the George on their way out of London to Canterbury. Shakespeare may well have popped in from the nearby Globe for a pint, and we know that D ickens definitely did. Mail carriers changed their horses here, before heading to all four corners of Britain -- while sailors drank here before visiting all four corners of the world...

The pub, as Pete Brown points out, is the 'primordial cell of British life' and in the George he has found the perfect case study. All life is here, from murderers, highwaymen and ladies of the night to gossiping pedlars and hard-working clerks. So sit back and watch as buildings rise and fall over the centuries, and 'the beer drinker's Bill Bryson' (TLS) takes us on an entertaining tour through six centuries of history, through the stories of everyone that ever drank in one pub.


Historic: The George Tavern near London Bridge in Southwark

I just wish they served the Beer Cold in the UK. It's one of the many ways the colonies have outdone the mother country.
 

Spade

Ace Poster
Nov 18, 2008
12,822
49
48
11
Aether Island
Fun with Di ck and Jane
"See Puff. See Puff run. Funny, funny Puff."
Can't beat the classics!

I had to put a space in Dic k as this site censors Grade 1 readers. Censors are funny! Funny , funny censors!
 

B00Mer

Make Canada Great Again
Sep 6, 2008
47,127
8,145
113
Rent Free in Your Head
www.canadianforums.ca
You know I have never read a book cover to cover since I left high school.. I just don't have the patience for it, excluding technical manuals for education, pilots license and so on.

During my high school years, I read such novels as the Red Pony, Grapes of Wrath, and Of Mice and Men, and a few others..

I guess I was more interested in playing chess, cribbage, horse back riding, hiking or camping, swimming and downhill skiing.

Self taught myself how to program in html, php and cgi and started to read code, create web site for fun.

My mother just suggested I read Harry Potter as I just adopted a cat from the Grand Prairie city pound called Ron Weasley, and hadn't a clue who Ron Weasley was.



Meet Ron Weasley folks.
 
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JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
75,301
548
113
Vernon, B.C.
Fun with Di ck and Jane
"See Puff. See Puff run. Funny, funny Puff."
Can't beat the classics!

I had to put a space in Dic k as this site censors Grade 1 readers. Censors are funny! Funny , funny censors!


That thought just crossed my mine. Hey I think you and I went to different schools together! -:)