The English

A Field Guide

By: Matt Rudd

Narrated by: Matt Rudd

Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

A hilarious field guide to the world's most remarkable and unusual creatures: the English. Who are the English? What is this puzzling species? Where does it live? What are its habits? What does it eat? Why does it eat that? And why has it developed such unexotic mating rituals?

Join us on a journey deep into the natural habitat of the English, a journey to rival anything David Attenborough did with gorillas, a journey that begins on a sofa (and continues, unflinchingly, into the kitchen, out into the garden, off to work, down to the pub and then on to the beach...and the bedroom).

Matt Rudd's fearless anthropological approach leaves no cliché unturned in his attempt to portray the real English. Are we really a nation of binge-drinking, horse-meat-eating, grumbling, tailgating slobs or is there something altogether more beautiful to be found lurking behind the cypress leylandii?

This unprecedented adventure will take you to a DFS store, to Blackpool's third best B&B, to the coffee kiosk on platform one at 5.35 in the morning. You will step into a ready-meal curry factory, a naturist's back garden and an office of the future where they do somersaults into beanbags. You will endure a night out in Wakefield, a night out in a queue and a night in Thetford Forest trying, unsuccessfully, to prove that dogging is an urban myth. You will watch Reading play football. And all from the comfort of your own sofa. How English.

Matt Rudd is senior writer at the Sunday Times. In the name of journalism, he has worn a short skirt in public, had a tour of a £300,000 lettuce shredder and stood outside Pippa Middleton's book launch for six hours in the freezing cold. In the name of this book, he has spent the last two years on the road with binoculars, a notebook and many Red Bulls. He lives in Kent with his family.

©2013 Matt Rudd (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"An opportunity for the English to laugh at themselves. And to show everyone else how mad and brilliant we are." (Jeremy Clarkson)

"It's perfect for dipping in and out of on, say, your commute to work, as each chapter is pretty self-contained. But be prepared to laugh out loud. And start nodding and thinking: "yep, I SO know that person," every few seconds.... Clever and witty, but oh-so true, you'll love this fab look at our nation." (The Sun)

"Which are we: dukes in top hats, or Pearly Kings? ...Good for Matt Rudd, who establishes that we're neither ....[H]e sprinkles the book with revealing nuggets...[readers] will find more home truths, and fewer clichés, about the English than they will in most Anglo-hunting books." (Mail on Sunday)