The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the English
Why do the English keep apologizing? Why are they so unenthusiastic about enthusiasm? Why does rain surprise them? When are they being ironic, and how can you tell? Even after eighteen years in London, New York Times reporter Sarah Lyall remained perplexed and intrigued by its curious inhabitants and their curious customs. She's since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive--and irreverent--insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.
While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files--part anthropological field study, part memoir--helps point the way.
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Lyall is a first-rate reporter, and her book has all the hallmarks of her journalism: it is warm, blunt, confessional, companionable.... [She] is at her tart, observant best.--Matt Weiland
A razor-sharp, hilarious, wickedly insightful, decidedly biased account.--Graydon Carter
Gleefully funny.--Judith Newman
Because Lyall is rather witty and understated herself, as well as a dogged, meticulous reporter, the result is a book that is both funny and illuminating.--Laurie Hertzel
Sarah Lyall is the wittiest observer of the English and their curious habits. Now she's written a book that takes her game to an entirely new level. It's funny, it's delightful and anyone with even a passing interest in these strange people should read it.--Michael Lewis
By turns wry, mordant, affectionate, bitter and sweet. I never miss any of Sarah Lyall's dispatches because, while they manage to remind me why I left, they also contrive to make me feel occasionally homesick.
An entertaining, indeed delightful, book. If the exchange rate makes going there impossible, read this. It's cheaper and almost as much fun.--Jeff Simon
A superb social and cultural anthropology by a reporter who has lived among her subjects without losing her sense of wonder for them. It is beautifully written, always insightful, and often hilarious. Imagine Margaret Mead channeling Jon Stewart and you have Sarah Lyall.--Eric Lax
