Mark Forsyth

A Riddle for a King is an enchanting tale by the bestselling author of the Etymologicon. Philo longs for freedom and adventure, and he most certainly gets it when he lands in the strangest of lands: a place where nothing makes sense, a place packed with riddles and paradoxes. Will Philo ever make it home? Will he make sense of...

A comic history of humankind's love affair with booze, from the Sunday Times No. 1 bestselling author of The Etymologicon. Almost every culture on earth has drink, and where there's drink there's drunkenness. But in every age and in every place, drunkenness is a little bit different. It can be religious, it can be sexual, it can be the duty...

Some people worry that they don't appreciate poetry; but English poetry wasn't written to be appreciated it was written to be enjoyed. For six centuries people have been reading poetry for enjoyment - for fun, for romance, for religion and for entertainment - and this is a book about those people.What was it like to be sent a Tudor love...

From Mark Forsyth, the author of the #1 international bestseller, The Etymologicon, comes a book of weird words for familiar situations. The Horologicon (or book of hours) contains the most extraordinary words in the English language, arranged according to what hour of the day you might need them. Do you wake up feeling rough? Then you’re philogrobolized. Find yourself pretending...

The Etymologicon is the perfect gift for readers, writers, and literature majors alike, unearthing the quirks of the English language. For example, do you know why a mortgage is literally a “death pledge”? Why guns have girls’ names? Why “salt” is related to “soldier”? Discover the answers to all of these etymological questions and more in this fascinating book for...

Enchanting Stephen Fry Unconventional, surprising and provocative from the first page Times Literary Supplement Did you know: Lord Byron sold more books in a day than Jane Austen did in her lifetime During the First World War there were more women poets published than soldier poets A kitchen-maid became one of the most popular poets of the 18th century Some...

From the #1 international bestselling author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon comes an education in the art of articulation, from the King James Bible to Katy Perry… From classic poetry to pop lyrics, from Charles Dickens to Dolly Parton, even from Jesus to James Bond, Mark Forsyth explains the secrets that make a phrase—such as “O Captain! My Captain!”...