The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery
'Hugely enjoyable' AN Wilson, Sunday Times

'Thoughtful, entertaining and enjoyable' Michael Gove, Book of the Week, The Times

Inspired by William Makepeace Thackeray, the first great analyst of snobbery, and his trail-blazing The Book of Snobs (1848), D. J. Taylor brings us a field guide to the modern snob.

Short of calling someone a racist or a paedophile, one of the worst charges you can lay at anybody's door in the early twenty-first century is to suggest that they happen to be a snob. But what constitutes snobbishness? Who are the snobs and where are they to be found? Are you a snob? Am I? What are the distinguishing marks? Snobbery is, in fact, one of the keys to contemporary British life, as vital to the backstreet family on benefits as the proprietor of the grandest stately home, and an essential element of their view of who of they are and what the world might be thought to owe them.

The New Book of Snobs will take a marked interest in language, the vocabulary of snobbery - as exemplified in the 'U' and 'Non U' controversy of the 1950s - being a particular field in which the phenomenon consistently makes its presence felt, and alternate social analysis with sketches of groups and individuals on the Thackerayan principle. Prepare to meet the Political Snob, the City Snob, the Technology Snob, the Property Snob, the Rural Snob, the Literary Snob, the Working-class Snob, the Sporting Snob, the Popular Cultural Snob and the Food Snob.

1125923431
The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery
'Hugely enjoyable' AN Wilson, Sunday Times

'Thoughtful, entertaining and enjoyable' Michael Gove, Book of the Week, The Times

Inspired by William Makepeace Thackeray, the first great analyst of snobbery, and his trail-blazing The Book of Snobs (1848), D. J. Taylor brings us a field guide to the modern snob.

Short of calling someone a racist or a paedophile, one of the worst charges you can lay at anybody's door in the early twenty-first century is to suggest that they happen to be a snob. But what constitutes snobbishness? Who are the snobs and where are they to be found? Are you a snob? Am I? What are the distinguishing marks? Snobbery is, in fact, one of the keys to contemporary British life, as vital to the backstreet family on benefits as the proprietor of the grandest stately home, and an essential element of their view of who of they are and what the world might be thought to owe them.

The New Book of Snobs will take a marked interest in language, the vocabulary of snobbery - as exemplified in the 'U' and 'Non U' controversy of the 1950s - being a particular field in which the phenomenon consistently makes its presence felt, and alternate social analysis with sketches of groups and individuals on the Thackerayan principle. Prepare to meet the Political Snob, the City Snob, the Technology Snob, the Property Snob, the Rural Snob, the Literary Snob, the Working-class Snob, the Sporting Snob, the Popular Cultural Snob and the Food Snob.

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The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery

The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery

by D.J. Taylor
The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery

The New Book of Snobs: A Definitive Guide to Modern Snobbery

by D.J. Taylor

Paperback(Reprint)

$15.99 
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Overview

'Hugely enjoyable' AN Wilson, Sunday Times

'Thoughtful, entertaining and enjoyable' Michael Gove, Book of the Week, The Times

Inspired by William Makepeace Thackeray, the first great analyst of snobbery, and his trail-blazing The Book of Snobs (1848), D. J. Taylor brings us a field guide to the modern snob.

Short of calling someone a racist or a paedophile, one of the worst charges you can lay at anybody's door in the early twenty-first century is to suggest that they happen to be a snob. But what constitutes snobbishness? Who are the snobs and where are they to be found? Are you a snob? Am I? What are the distinguishing marks? Snobbery is, in fact, one of the keys to contemporary British life, as vital to the backstreet family on benefits as the proprietor of the grandest stately home, and an essential element of their view of who of they are and what the world might be thought to owe them.

The New Book of Snobs will take a marked interest in language, the vocabulary of snobbery - as exemplified in the 'U' and 'Non U' controversy of the 1950s - being a particular field in which the phenomenon consistently makes its presence felt, and alternate social analysis with sketches of groups and individuals on the Thackerayan principle. Prepare to meet the Political Snob, the City Snob, the Technology Snob, the Property Snob, the Rural Snob, the Literary Snob, the Working-class Snob, the Sporting Snob, the Popular Cultural Snob and the Food Snob.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781472123930
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date: 11/07/2017
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 5.00(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

D.J. Taylor's novels include English Settlement (1996), which won a Grinzane Cavour Prize, Trespass (1998) and Derby Day (2011), both long-listed for the Man Booker Prize, Kept: A Victorian Mystery (2006), a Publishers Weekly book of the year, and The Windsor Faction (2013), joint winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including Orwell: The Life, winner of the 2003 Whitbread Prize for Biography and, most recently, The Prose Factory: Literary Life in England Since 1918 (2016). He lives in Norwich with his wife, the novelist Rachel Hore, and their three sons.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Theory and Practice

1 The Snob Defined 3

2 Heroes and Villains: Katie Price, Lord Prescott and Others 23

3 The Great Snobographer 35

The Snob in Action I: Ralph Straus 47

4 Best Sets 49

5 Noblesse Oblige 74

The Snob in Action II: Mrs Thatcher and Her Critics 90

6 The Pockthorpe Factor 94

7 Two Snob Portraits: J. L.-M. and 'The Beast' 113

The Snob in Action III: W. G, Grace 128

8 Snob Lingo 131

9 'These people ought to be shot': The Future of Snobbery 149

The Snob in Action IV: Beau Brummell 167

10 In Defence of the Snob 171

The Snob in Action V: Tom Driberg 178

Part 2 Among the Snobs - Sketches

Some Country Snobs 185

Property Snobs 189

Film Snobs 193

The Progressive Snob: Henrietta Crabbe 198

The City Snob: Mr de Lisle 209

Sporting Snobs 214

School Snobs 220

The Broadhursts and Lucy 224

A Little Dinner at the Perownes' 239

The Story of Harriet Silver 250

A Note on Names and Titles 264

Notes and Further Reading 268

Acknowledgements 276

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