Booze writers are in general nerdish and insular. The beer boys, with their compulsory beards, live in the pub and are looked down upon both by the wine writers (who live in glass houses) and the 'Rudolphs', as the red-nosed specialists of the spirits world could be termed. As for the writers of cocktail books, no living specimen has been taken since the first publication of The Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930 rendered all subsequent efforts redundant. This tendency explains why there are no books that span the whole subject of booze, as if people who drink wine might never enjoy a cocktail or even a beer. Grogan's Companion to Drink will plug the yawning gap for a single source of information for, say, the key ingredients in a Pimms, for a pithy tutorial on how the hierarchy of the wines of Bordeaux is structured (what are people on about when they refer to a 'cru bourgeois') or for a round-up of all those Polish beers on the shelves. It will not only avoid being nerdish and insular, it will also avoid being patronising, pompous or pretentious (and that's just the 'p's). So whether you're looking for a great drink for £2.99 (Tesco's value red wine in a carton) or if you finally want to understand what it was you were drinking when you supped Agua de Valencia, it's the perfect gift for those who drink as well as taste...

Booze writers are in general nerdish and insular. The beer boys, with their compulsory beards, live in the pub and are looked down upon both by the wine writers (who live in glass houses) and the 'Rudolphs', as the red-nosed specialists of the spirits world could be termed.

Coming soon in paperback one of the best and most entertaining books ever done on American cocktail culture and history a perfect Father's Day gift item, from the Wall Street Journal column of the same name."

The heartwarming and unforgettable story of a family and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Now with photos and new material. Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans. John and Jenny were just beginning their life together. They were young and in love, with not a care in the world. Then they brought home Marley, a wiggly yellow furball of a puppy. Life would never be the same. Marley grew into a barreling, ninety-seven-pound streamroller of a Labrador retriever. He crashed through screen doors, gouged through drywall, and stole women's undergarments. Obedience school did no good -- Marley was expelled. But just as Marley joyfully refused any limits on his behavior, his love and loyalty were boundless, too. Marley remained a model of devotion, even when his family was at its wit's end. Unconditional love, they would learn, comes in many forms. Marley & Me is John Grogan's funny, unforgettable tribute to this wonderful, wildly neurotic Lab and the meaning he brought to their lives.

A fierce mirth characterizes antic Irish comedy. To the degree to which everyone sympathizes with the need to mock repressive authority, everyone is potentially Irish. It is the Irish dramatists themselves, says David Krause, that are the true authors of the profane book of Irish comedy. The body of literature they have produced desecrates the sacred in Ireland and launches a sardonic attack on the queen of Irish nationalism, Cathleen Ni Houlihan, the old sow who, according to Joyce's tragicomic jest, tries to devour her creative farrow. Krause discusses the major works of fourteen Irish playwrights—Samuel Beckett, Brendan Behan, Dion Boucicault, William Boyle, Paul Vincent Carroll, George Fitzmaurice, Lady Gregory, Denis Johnston, Sean O'Casey, Lennox Robinson, Bernard Shaw, George Shields, J. M. Synge, and W. B. Yeats—and shows the ways in which these works are linked, emotionally and thematically, to early Gaelic literature and the tradition of the mythic pagan playboy Oisin or Usheen. As the last great pagan hero of Ireland, Oisin emerges as an archetype for the many playboys and paycocks of Irish comedy. Oisin was the antithesis of St. Patrick, the first great Christian saint of Ireland, who, condemning pleasure and threatening eternal damnation, came to represent all authority. The bearers of this dark and wild Celtic tradition, which Synge and O'Casey associated with a daimonic or barbarous impulse, laugh irreverently at their own creations. This laughter, the laughter of the culture's mythmakers, brings with it emotional relief, comic catharsis.