On the way to a show in Skipton, in North Yorkshire, I noticed a road sign to a town called Keighley. So later, during the show, I mentioned this, asking the audience, 'Is that your rival town?' And the room went chillingly quiet, until one woman called out with understated menace, 'Keighley is a sink of evil.' Based on his award-winning BBC Radio 4 series, Mark Steel's In Town, is a celebration of the quirks of small-town life in a country of increasingly homogenised high streets. Steel's bespoke observations on the small, sometimes forgotten, towns of Britain go right to the heart of British culture today, championing the very people who shape the places we live in now. "As everywhere hurtles along a route towards being identical to everywhere else, it seems any expression of local interest or eccentricity is becoming a yell of defiance. Scrape away the veneer of Wetherspoons and Pizza Hut-inspired uniformity, and the march of Tesco's towards being reclassified as a continent, and Britain is as magnificently diverse as ever, and ready to celebrate each distinct community. The elements of a town that make it unique are what make it worth visiting; they change a journey from being functional to being an experience. For example, one drizzly dark February afternoon as I came out of the station at Scunthorpe, I got in a minicab, and the driver didn't even look at me, but kept staring straight ahead as he said, 'I don't know what you've come here for, it's a fucking shit-hole." Unearthing some of Britain's most unusual tourist attractions, and noting local quirks and habits, Steel's journey takes him through the backwaters of England, up to Scotland and across to Ireland, where he encounters a country united by a peculiarly ingrained sense of pride, no matter which village, town or city, to give a refreshing take on Britain, its people and its places.

In Town

Humor & Entertainment

mark-steel

Humor

Fourth Estate

For most of us, the French Revolution has been reduced to jokes about Marie-Antoinette, guillotines and the Scarlet Pimpernel. But for Mark Steel the French Revolution was one of the most inspirational moments in human history - a moment when ordinary people changed the world and became extraordinary. It deserves better jokes than that. In this revolutionary new book, Steel banishes stuffiness from history, telling us what happened in France between the storming of the Bastille and the rise of Napoleon. VIVE LA REVOLUTION is an uproariously serious work of history - brilliantly funny and insightful, it puts the peculiarity of individual people back at the centre of the story.

Vive LA Revolution

History

Europe

Scribner

<p>Fictional book about gossip regarding the prominent people that live in a suburb of Detroit, called Grosse Pointe. Grosse Pointe Pimp was written by a personal trainer to the rich and famous of the posh Grosse Pointe area.</p>

Grosse Pointe Pimp

Riveting Publishing

Grosse Pointe Inferno

<p>Had enough of those trite, generic "Be the best that you can be!" fitness books? Fit after 50 breaks it down into the nuts and bolts of fitness. How would you like to slow down, halt, or reverse the aging process? There is no magic pill, just this magic book.Mark Steel, Sarasota Florida's Classic Personal Trainer and well-known fitness guru, gives you answers and insights to fitness questions in an often hilarious style. This is the most practical guide yet written specifically for men and women who admit they are middle aged or older and know they need to get fit fast!This is an immensely entertaining book on a topic that some people used to find boring...but won't anymore!</p>

Fit After 50 Answers and Insights

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Exercise & Fitness

What's Going On?: The Meanderings of a Comic Mind in Confusion

Simon Schuster Ltd

Dispatches from a slightly successful comedian.

It's Not a Runner Bean...: Confessions of a Slightly Successful Comedian

Do Not Pr

It's Not a Runner Bean...

Do Not Press

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