A Christmas Cornucopia: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Yuletide Traditions - Couverture rigide

Forsyth, Mark

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0241267730 ISBN 13 : 9780241267738

Editeur : Viking, 2016

Synopsis

BY THE SUNDAY TIMES NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR

The perfect gift for anyone who has ever wondered about the unpredictable origins and etymologies of our Christmas customs!

For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don't know much about Christmas.

We don't know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas, etymologically speaking, means "Go away, Christ". We're oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularising sweet wrappers.

Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way.

'Witty and revelatory. Blooming brilliant' Raymond Briggs

'Everything we ever thought about Christmas is wrong! Great stuff' Matthew Parris

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Born in London in 1977, Mark Forsyth (a.k.a The Inky Fool) was given a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary as a christening present and has never looked back. His book The Etymologicon was a Sunday Times Number One Bestseller and his TED Talk 'What's a snollygoster?' has had more than half a million views. He has also written a specially commissioned essay 'The Unknown Unknown' for Independent Booksellers Week and the introduction for the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary. He lives in London with his dictionaries, and blogs at blog.inkyfool.com.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Viking
• Date d'édition: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0241267730
• ISBN 13: 9780241267738
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 192
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH; kundenservice@penguinrandomhouse.de; ; Neumarkter Straße 28; München; Bayern; 81673; Allemagne