Review
Sunday Express - 'Perfect summer reading'bookbag.co.uk - 'One of those rare books written with academic rigour which has mass market appeal. As a snapshot of how life used to be and what it has become this book can't be beaten.' 'Queuing for Beginners is a splendidly entertaining book. Joe Moran take a simple but wonderfully imaginative idea, following an ordinary working day from breakfast to bedtime, and uncovers the twentieth-century history of the mundane rituals through which we structure our lives. Nothing escapes his gaze, from cereal packets to chain pubs, and the result is a deft, clever and endlessly fascinating example of social history at its best.'- Dominic Sandbrook 'A thoroughly novel and refreshing way of looking at our recent history. This is "mundane" as a good thing. It is a daybreak to bedtime story told further from "them", and nearer to "us". Almost every page has its "yes!...I'd forgotten" moment. I loved it enormously.'- Andrew Marr 'An original idea that's well-executed and of interest to anyone who's enjoyed a fry-up, stood by a water-cooler and slept under a duvet. By interrogating the history of everyday objects and routines, Moran reveals the contingent, often extraordinary, nature of daily life in Britain, and the material culture that dominates it in the early 21st century. I thoroughly enjoyed it.' - Richard Weight Juliet Gardiner - 'A wonderfully insightful probe into the habits and rituals that have made up daily life in Britain since the Second World War. Almost nothing escapes Joe Moran's penetrating gaze; an inspired anthropologist of the ordinary, and often very funny, he turns his readers into informed observers, and gives an enhanced understanding of what we do every day without a second thought and why we do it. You'll never eat a slice of toast, join a queue or send an e mail in the same way again.'Daily Telegraph - 'Fascinating stuff, and Moran delivers it in a relaxed and often hilarious style.'Sam West, Independent: "I've just read Queuing for Beginners by Joe Moran, an affectionate tribute to British life that's very funny and bang up to date with chapters on email etiquette and the seven-minute lunch break. It made me want to take the author to the pub, where I'd ask him why we drink beer in pints."
Juliet Gardiner
`A wonderfully insightful probe into the habits and rituals that
have made up daily life in Britain since the Second World War. Almost
nothing escapes Joe Moran's penetrating gaze; an inspired anthropologist of
the ordinary, and often very funny, he turns his readers into informed
observers, and gives an enhanced understanding of what we do every day
without a second thought and why we do it. You'll never eat a slice of
toast, join a queue or send an e mail in the same way again.'