‘Wine is a good, familiar creature and once bitten, that’s it.’ Len Evans Len Evans was bitten early and that was it. He remained an enthusiastically successful promoter of the ‘good, familiar creature’ until his untimely death in 2006. But after almost half a century of a life in wine, he wasn’t keen on getting into the autobiography business. ‘I was asked to write my memoirs,’ he said in 1985, ‘but I didn’t like the idea – for one reason I’m still living them, and for another, my many conceits do not include a belief that my life has been particularly fascinating.’ Well, he didn’t write his memoirs but he left us something else that is uniquely Evans – an anecdotal ramble through a life devoted to the production, promotion – and drinking! – of wine. There are occasional detours to paint a picture of an old mate, tell a wise or hilarious wine tale, or just spin a good yarn. And there was many a yarn garnered in the new Welsh migrant’s progress from ring-barking trees in the bush to washing glasses in a pub, writing comedy sketches and embarking on a career-changing role in a major hotel before becoming established as a restaurateur, vigneron and ultimately – almost inevitably – as Australia’s most influential wine personality. In 1979, Len wrote of a friend’s book, ‘It’s a funny book, it’s a serious book. It contains something for every wine lover.’ Few words could better describe what he has left us in Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine. Praise for Len Evans ‘There was, and will only ever be, one Don Bradman – and only one Len Evans AO, OBE.’ – James Halliday ‘[Len Evans is] the finest judge of wine I know.’ – Hugh Johnson ‘Len Evans has done more to advance the cause of Australian wine than any other individual.’ – The Oxford Companion to Wine

In this informative and amusing book - updated by Jonathan Ray to include 12 new wines - Simon Hoggart provides a highly personal selection of more than 100 exciting and eclectic wines that are invariably good value. Life's Too Short to Drink Bad Wine is aimed at the amateur wine lover prepared, occasionally, to spend a little more than supermarket prices to get something special. Simon eschews pretentious 'wine-speak' yet describes his encounters with each of them so wittily you will be sure to remember them. The wines are arranged alphabetically with entries interspersed with interesting features varying from how to read a wine label or on how to buy wine, to an account of the Judgment of Paris, when Californian wines beat the French in a blind tasting. From the 112 selected, Simon has awarded ten of them Top 10 status. At the back of the book is a source list of wine makers, distributors and merchants.

"You can't unring a bell." "It takes a village to raise a child." "Life is just a bowl of cherries." We sometimes think of proverbs as expressions of ancient wisdom, but in fact new proverbs are constantly arising. This unique volume is devoted exclusively to English language proverbs that originated in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The most complete and accurate such collection ever compiled, The Yale Book of Modern Proverbs presents more than 1,400 individual proverbs gathered and researched with the help of electronic full-text databases not previously used for such a project. Entries are organized alphabetically by key words, with information about the earliest datable appearance, origin, history, and meaning of each proverb. Mundane or sublime, serious or jocular, these memorable sayings represent virtually every aspect of the modern experience. Readers will find the book almost impossible to put down once opened; every page offers further proof of the immense vitality of proverbs and their colorful contributions to the oral traditions of today.

For people who wouldn't know a Romanée-Conti from a bad-boy Argentine malbec, or a glass of Château d'Yquem from a can of orange Tango, help is at hand. Based on the authors' highly esteemed blog, 'Sediment' (described by Nicholas Lezard of The Guardian as 'the finest wine blog known to humanity'), I've Bought It, So I'll Drink It takes a wry look at the social, financial, personal and marital issues surrounding middle-class wine drinking. Covering such vital topics as befriending a wine merchant, high-street wine from supermarkets and corner shops, tools of the trade like the pichet and tumblers, dining-table wine etiquette, wine in a box, the cubi flagon, wine drinking in the Georgian era, and even homage to le Piat d'Or, this is not a book that takes wine too seriously. Instead, it wrestles it out of the bottle, pins it down and makes it tell the truth - in language we can all understand. By writing humorously, and much more broadly than specialist wine writers, CJ and PK break out of the wine-writing niche, with its exclusive vocabulary and faint air of superiority. For those of us who so often fail to detect notes of citrus and caramel, but mainly get a hint of alcohol with a grapey finish, the book is as refreshing as a glass of decent Muscadet on a summer's day; it is also the perfect gift for the wine drinker to whom you don't want to give wine.

In the past few decades, many of us have become sophisticated about food, but we have not given the same attention to what we drink. In How to Drink, Victoria Moore aims to redress the balance, by showing how to drink well throughout the seasons and at all times of day. She explains how to make the most delicious coffee and juices; how to choose wine that complements your food; and how to make cocktails for every occasion--whether to serve a garden barbecue, as a cold weather aperitif, or just to unwind with at the end of the day. Here are recipes for mint juleps in the spring, sloe gin in the autumn, hot buttered rum in the winter, and year-round showstoppers including the world's best gin and tonic. Moore is also an impassioned advocate of unfairly maligned drinks such as sherry, Campari and saki, and gives fascinating historical background on different spirits as well as invaluable advice on creating your home bar. How to Drink is a hugely readable, browseable and authoritative handbook, whose aim is to inform, entertain and crucially, make sure you can find the right drink at the right time. "It doesn't need to be either difficult or expensive to drink as well as you eat, it just requires a little care..." "A splendid book. Victoria Moore is quite right--it's not how much you drink but how you drink." --Fergus Henderson, chef and co-owner, St. Johns Restaurant "I loved How to Drink. For the first time in years I have broken open a bottle of vodka for a Bloody Mary, remembered how much better mulled cider is than mulled wine, drawn a fresh kettle for tea..." --Joanna Weinberg, author of How to Feed Your Friends with Relish "Anyone who loves their food should heed this unmatchable tutorial in the art of enjoying drink; Victoria Moore succinctly puts every sip in lively context, banishing the guilt from the pleasure of it all." --Rose Prince, author of The New English Kitchen

"This ... guide to wine is the perfect accopmpaniment to a knackered mother's frantic life. ... The advice pairs well with a ... schedule of work, kids and grown-up time. On offer are reliable recommendations for Sunday roasts, wines to impress, sparkling wine for children's parties (because adults need something fizzy too) and post-bedtime decompresssion, as well as tips on what to offload on the school raffle."--Back cover.