Across the Pond: An Englishman's View of America

An irreverent trip through American culture by a critic who “cracks jokes as easily as one would crack walnut shells” (Washington Post).

Americans have long been fascinated with the oddness of the British, but the English, says literary critic Terry Eagleton, find their transatlantic neighbors just as strange. Only an alien race would admiringly refer to a colleague as “aggressive,” use superlatives to describe everything from one’s pet dog to one’s rock collection, or speak frequently of b...