I Should Know That: Great Britain: Everything You Really Should Know About GB

by Emma Marriott

From icons of British history to geography, and the economy to the legal system, I Should Know That: Great Britain covers a wide range of topics, filling in all those embarrassing gaps in your knowledge of the fair isle. Inspired by the UK citizenship test, this useful and interesting guide includes sections such as essential British history, the current political and legal system, migration to Britain, women’s rights, geography, and culture. Learn all about the Magna Carta, the House of Lords, the Old Bailey, and the Commonwealth, and more light-hearted topics such as allotments, pets, haggis, and marmite, while scoffing at the unfortunate but hilarious gaffes made by our politicians. Packed full of information, this entertaining and fact-filled guide to Great Britain is perfect for anyone who wishes that they knew more about the UK.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Travel

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2013

Reviews

[Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

If half stars were allowed I'd give this book 2.5. I impulse-bought it while on vacation in England and enjoyed reading it and sharing facts and tidbits with my family. It was interesting enough to read all the way through and provided a lot of conversation starters. But I have some quibbles with the book that impacted my opinion on it:

First, I am a die-hard proponent of the Oxford comma, which this book did not use. The lack of an Oxford comma made some of the long, winding sentences so confusing that I had to pause and take a minute to puzzle it out, only to have an "oh!" moment when my brain inserted the comma. This became a pet peeve that annoyed me more the further I got.

Second, and in truth more significant, is the fact that the book sometimes would talk about/mention something with no explanation of what it was. They would be quite self-explanatory for British people, but I, a dumb tourist, was forced to go look up on my own what "Commonwealth nations" , "pasties", and "grammar school" are. Most of the book was written in a tone as if the reader knows nothing about the UK so these seem like odd oversights.

Also it could've really used another once-over for editing. There were occasional grammatical errors and typos.

Fun light reading for a person on a trip, though.

[Jamey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read and interesting little scamper through British history, politics, food, humor and all kinds of other little tidbits. I’ve lived here 3 1/2 years and there were still many things in here that I never knew.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

A whole bunch of Britain in one fell swoop. Brilliant.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was fun to read, until I read reviews online that some of the informations it contained are wrong... But still a fun reading to discover a bit more about English culture.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gave me this book while we were on a cruise. It was a great read.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was thankfully a short read. I'm not sure if the author has ever been to Britain, or has ever met a British person, but this felt like a curiously one-dimensional nightmare of a country in which we eat fish and chips incessantly, cannot hear a clock strike four without running off to find the nearest teapot, and spend our leisure time in gardening and watching "Mr Bean". This book was written recently but bears little witness to the realities of modern British life.

The inaccuracies, though, were quite funny. I'm sad to report that the Last Night of the Proms does, as advertised, only last one night, and not eight weeks as the author claims. She may be thinking of the Proms; demonstrably, this book is for those who wish to be misinformed.

If you can overlook incorrect details and terrible proof-reading (visiting the Glastonbuy festival, anyone?) you might still need to use your imagination to reach an accurate picture of the UK. I wonder if this book should be retitled "I Should Know Better".

[Kirstin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thought this would be a good start to reading more non-fiction. Unfortunately, It wasn't as light as I'd hoped but I'd decided to keep reading as the information was interesting.

When I got to the Eduction chapter, I was stunned to see the words "In England and Scotland children sit SATS...." No. No they do not. SATS are not used in Scotland. Perhaps the author meant to write Wales? She then went on to say that pupils in England sit GCSEs, but children in Scotland sit "SQA" at 15, again, no.

Realising how inaccurate this section was I daren't trust the rest of the information in the book, so stopped persevering.

Deserves the QI tag line, "We say quite interesting, we do not guarantee quite accurate." If you're happy to go ahead on that basis, then fire away. If you want a interesting read with useful facts keep looking.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I have to say that this book will not help you a lot if you want to become a British citizen. It seems that the author never set foot on this lovely island, but only "set foot on" wikipedia and google. It may be ok if you want to know some basic things about Britain, but it is culturally misleading. No, British people do not eat fish and chips all day! And no, the do not drink tea all day! If you really want to know something about Britain then save some money, travel and discover for yourself.

[Alannah Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great first non-fiction book for my 2014 challenge. While I knew a lot of the information in the book from studying History and Government and Politics, there was a lot of information that was brand new to me. I really enjoyed erasing this book ans I can't believe it only took me a few hours to read it, although that being said it is not a big book and the writing should not go over your head. It is a very accessible book for people of all ages if they want to know more about Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

decent enough as a very basic primer. some unfortunate typos, including the 'Jenson Bunton' and 3.69 minutes mentioned below, although i don't agree that these are factual inaccuracies in the sense that the author believes them to be correct, so much as they are just bad editing. the abrupt ending was quite amusing as well. one moment it's talking about linguistic clichés people dislike, then a brief and semi-relevant aside on the misuse of prepositions, then it just stops.

[David Cross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some nice subtle humour in here, but I think that it might be too subtle and that people will take it seriously. If you look closely, it becomes obvious that none of the facts can be trusted. Apparently the Last Night of the Proms is an eight-week long season of classical music and Roger Bannister ran his sub-four-minute mile in 3 minutes 69.4 seconds.

Clever parody, but perhaps too subtle. Read it as an updated version of "1066 and All That".

[Carole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Badly let down by inaccuracies. If you're going to chide people for not knowing facts, you need to make sure you have them right yourself. Roger Bannister's sub-four minute mile was run in 3.59 minutes, not 3.69 (the clue is there) and I've never heard of the racing driver Jenson Bunton. These are just the ones I noticed - so how do I know the rest of the book is correct?

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pick this up if you are looking to learn a lot. I wanted to broaden my knowledge of the UK and this will take me a few readings to absorb the knowledge from it! Thoroughly enjoyed it and read the interesting parts in 2 hours.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

A random collection of subjective 'facts' which may or may not be true, seemingly cobbled together after a bit of light Googling and to cash in on a prevailing bandwagon.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book just reads like a heavy, boring history textbook. I'd happily play frisbee with it.

It's full of quite dense incorrect, badly researched statistics and information.