Here are 100 books that Pardon my Spanish! fans have personally recommended if you like
Pardon my Spanish!.
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I’ve been fascinated with living life on my own terms since I was a child and drew pictures with inspirational quotes such as ‘go your own way!’ and ‘aim for the moon!’ Fast forward to my thirties and I quit my 9-5 career to embrace what it means to live out my wildest dreams. I was terrified but, aren’t we all? I can’t get enough of inspiring books that teach me how to live big, believe in myself, and push far beyond what society tells us we should do. All of which helped me to build my dream life and live it. Now get out there and make your dream life happen!
Driving Over Lemons is a quintessential travel book that inspired me to throw away my regular life and start exploring the world.
This classic tale takes you to far-flung shores bathed in sunshine, filled with misadventures, and bursting with glorious food. What more could you need to start dreaming, take a leap, and make your perfect life a reality?
This is my go-to for the start of any big project and always gives me the courage to go for it and laugh in the face of adversity on the way.
A special anniversary edition with an updated chapter set 25 years on by Chris Stewart.
Over two decades ago we set up Sort of Books to help our friend, the some-time Genesis drummer Chris Stewart, bring his sunlit stories of life on a Spanish mountain farm to print. Ever the optimist, Chris hoped to earn enough money to buy a second-hand tractor for his farm. He got his tractor, as the book spent a year on the Sunday Times Top 10 charts and went on to sell a million and a half copies.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Victoria Twead is the New York Times bestselling author of Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools and the subsequent six books in the Old Fools series. After living in a remote mountain village in Spain for eleven years, and owning probably the most dangerous cockerel in Europe, Victoria and Joe retired to Australia. Another joyous life-chapter has begun.
Who hasn’t learnt useful stuff from one of the “For Dummies” books? Our command of the Spanish language was lamentable when we first moved to Spain and we had to learn super-fast. The step-by-step approach in this book made learning the language a little less daunting and the accompanying CD was great for hearing how words should be pronounced. Although not hugely enthusiastic about following the course, the Spanish girl’s husky voice held Joe’s attention...
Learn Latin American Spanish quickly and painlessly The job market for those who are bilingual is expanding rapidly. Businesses and government agencies are hiring translators; retailers and advertisers are concentrating more energy in targeting the Spanish-speaking; and hospitals and agencies are seeking to overcome language barriers. Whether you re a student studying Spanish, a traveler gearing up for a trip to a Spanish-speaking country and need to learn the basics, or a upwardly mobile looking to get ahead of the pack in your career by learning a second language, Spanish For Dummies, 2nd edition is your hands-on guide to quickly…
Victoria Twead is the New York Times bestselling author of Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools and the subsequent six books in the Old Fools series. After living in a remote mountain village in Spain for eleven years, and owning probably the most dangerous cockerel in Europe, Victoria and Joe retired to Australia. Another joyous life-chapter has begun.
If you are moving to Spain, you’ll appreciate David Hampshire’s guides for deciding which region might suit you, how to choose a home and settling into your new way of life. Hampshire includes vital advice like making a Spanish will, driving and finance. He even provides checklists of things to do before the move, and after arrival. We’d have appreciated advice on what to do if one's removal van knocks over the village fountain, or how to stop our cockerel attacking visitors, but I guess we were just unlucky.
Written in an entertaining style with a touch of humour, Buying a Home in Spain covers everything a prospective buyer could wish to know including buying for investment, the best places to live, finding your dream home, money matters, the purchase procedure, moving house, taxation, insurance, letting and much, much more. It is packed with vital information and insider tips to help readers avoid disasters that can turn their dream home into a nightmare. Buying a Home in Spain is essential reading for anyone planning to buy a home in Spain and is designed to guide readers through the property…
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
Victoria Twead is the New York Times bestselling author of Chickens, Mules and Two Old Fools and the subsequent six books in the Old Fools series. After living in a remote mountain village in Spain for eleven years, and owning probably the most dangerous cockerel in Europe, Victoria and Joe retired to Australia. Another joyous life-chapter has begun.
Not only did we fall head-over-heels in love with Spain, but we also developed a love of Spanish food. The village ladies gave us recipes scribbled on the backs of envelopes which we often lost, so this book by the delicious Omar Allibhoy holds a permanent place on our bookshelf now. Believe me, his croquetas de jamón are to die for, and I agree with the reviewer who claims that Omar changed the way she cooks tortillas forever. The photos of the finished dishes are arty and attractive and (cough, cough) there are plenty of Omar himself which are also pretty easy on the eye. If you don’t believe me, check him out on YouTube.
Omar Allibhoy is the new face of Spanish cooking: he's charismatic, effusive, passionate and wants to bring Spanish food to the people of the UK.
Tapas Revolution is the breakthrough book on simple Spanish cookery. Using everyday storecupboard ingredients, Omar offers a new take on the classic tortilla de patatas, making this iconic dish easier than ever, and brings a twist to pinchos morunos and pollo con salsa. With sections covering vegetables, salads, rice dishes, meat, fish, cakes and desserts, the emphasis is on simplicity of ingredients and methods - reinforcing the fact that absolutely anyone can cook this versatile…
After writing more than sixty romance novels, I can sometimes find myself at a loss for words, unable to think of the right word or find myself using the same ones. Having a good thesaurus is invaluable. I use my own thesaurus, Naughty Words for Nice Writers, all the time. I wrote it as a survival guide—it was the book I needed that didn’t exist when I started writing romance. Besides Naughty Words, the thesauri/reference books I’m recommending are tools I couldn’t live without.
If you want a general thesaurus, I believe The Synonym Finder with more than 1 million synonyms is the best one on the market.
I’ve used it for more than 30 years and had to replace my original copy because it was so well-used, it fell apart. What makes this thesaurus stand out is the quality of synonyms and the ease of use. It is super easy to find the words you’re looking for. Every author should have this book!
With a simple alphabetical arrangement this book has been expanded to include thousands of new words and expressions that have entered the language in recent years, and includes clearly labelled slang and informal words and expressions.
I write fiction, mostly historical mysteries, and non-fiction, generally about the English language. Both aspects of my writing reflect an interest in the past and how it continually shapes the present. The roots of English go back thousands of years to Latin, Anglo-Saxon, French, and many other sources. Yet the newest term to the vast storehouse of language may have been added only last week. Recently I’ve been writing about oaths, swear words, and bad language.
Jonathon Green is the doyen of dirty words. Or, more respectfully, he
is the premier lexicographer of the graphic, the dubious, and the
obscene. For decades Green has been trawling obscure publications and
other outré sources for examples of slang in the English language, and
publishing dictionaries that are unmatched in their scope and detail.
No term, however racist, sexist, classist, or any other kind of -ist,
is too small to go unnoticed. In Odd Job Man, a mixture of
autobiography and ruminations on bad language, Green describes himself
as an ‘anatomist of the underbelly cutting not into ripe cadavers but
into riper language.’ It’s a life’s work.
For thirty years Jonathon Green has been collecting slang - the indefinable language of the gutter, the brothel, the jail, the barroom - producing a succession of dictionaries, most recently the three-volume Green's Dictionary of Slang, that have been recognised as the most comprehensive and authoritative ever compiled. In this fascinating memoir Green reveals that he first began collecting slang in the 1970s, noticing that the contemporary authorities (notably Eric Partridge) preferred the past to the present, unaware of the huge array of new slang being coined by the counter-culture. He ponders why he still does this strange, lonely job,…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
I write fiction, mostly historical mysteries, and non-fiction, generally about the English language. Both aspects of my writing reflect an interest in the past and how it continually shapes the present. The roots of English go back thousands of years to Latin, Anglo-Saxon, French, and many other sources. Yet the newest term to the vast storehouse of language may have been added only last week. Recently I’ve been writing about oaths, swear words, and bad language.
This American title is at the more academic end of books on swearing
and oaths. Mohr shows how obscenity evolves over time. Words now
considered indecent were acceptable in the Middle Ages while careless
invocations of God and Jesus were taboo (that’s not to say they
weren’t used). The very title of the book neatly illustrates a
difference between US and British culture, with the asterisk being
used to soften potential offence in the States. By contrast in the UK, the word usually appears naked and unashamed on the cover (as in
Frankie Boyle’s My Shit Life So Far).
Almost everyone swears, or worries about not swearing, from the two year-old who has just discovered the power of potty mouth to the grandma who wonders why every other word she hears is obscene. Whether they express anger or exhilaration, are meant to insult or to commend, swear words perform a crucial role in language. But swearing is also a uniquely well-suited lens through which to look at history, offering a fascinating record of what people care about on the deepest levels of a culture-what's divine, what's terrifying, and what's taboo.
I’ve loved words ever since I discovered at age five that the word “pup” was a palindrome. My first published poem, “Kitten,” was written in third grade and was included in Valley View Elementary School’s annual creative writing booklet.
Since then, I’ve written loads of limericks, a heap of haiku, quarts of quatrains, two octos, and enough rhyming couplets to make Shakespeare plead “forsooth, enough already”. To the relief of the general public, I’ve only published one book of poetry. For now.
I’m a completionist. I take pleasure in completing a game or task involving many steps that I can tick off as I go.
A to Z lists thrill me like nothing else can! Seeing different minds tackle the same 26 letters each in their own way, never gets old. I was a grown-up when I first discovered Edward Gorey and found him amusing.
But when I discovered this book, the hairs on the back of my neck tingled. He was taking on the A to Z challenge! And he nailed it. Each line is concise and yet tells me everything I need to know.
It’s a short book, but since each line comes with an illustration showing that letter’s victim’s last moments, it’s worth pausing to savor each page.
A new, small-format edition of one of Edward Gorey’s “dark masterpieces of surreal morality” (Vanity Fair): a witty, disquieting journey through the alphabet.
I enjoy finding science in places where you might not expect it. Science really is everywhere. It's tempting to think of it as its own category of news or its own shelf in the bookstore. But science is a way of thinking about every aspect of the world, including our passions and daily lives. I love finding the spaces where these lines are blurred, and these books are such great examples of finding science in surprising places.
I spent much of the past few decades online, in different online communities that each have their own special way of communicating. With how fast the internet evolved, it should be no surprise that language rapidly changed with it.
In Because Internet, Gretchen McCulloch takes the reader through a linguistic analysis of the internet, from leetspeak to doge memes. It’s already missing more recent internet language a few years after publication. Still, I love the book for a casual yet academic look at the silly side of the internet's teenage years.
Named a Best Book of 2019 by TIME, Amazon, and The Washington Post
A Wired Must-Read Book of Summer
“Gretchen McCulloch is the internet’s favorite linguist, and this book is essential reading. Reading her work is like suddenly being able to see the matrix.” —Jonny Sun, author of everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too
Because Internet is for anyone who's ever puzzled over how to punctuate a text message or wondered where memes come from. It's the perfect book for understanding how the internet is changing the English language, why that's a…
I’ve been working with words for over 25 years, as a writer and editor in publishing houses, design studios, and now as a freelance. I help everyone from big brands and small businesses through to academics and consultants get their ideas out of their heads and on to the page. I was an original co-founder of ProCopywriters, the UK alliance for commercial writers. I’ve written and self-published four books, the most recent of which is How to Write Clearly. The books I’ve chosen all helped me to write as clearly as I can—not least when writing about writing itself. I hope they help you too!
I first read this as a teenager, and its wise counsel has stayed with me ever since. Gowers’ book was originally written as a guide for British government workers, to help them avoid the perils of jargon and ‘officialese’ and write in a way that colleagues and (more importantly) the person in the street could actually understand.
The fact that I could immediately apply the ideas to my school essays shows you why this book has been continuously in print since the 1950s, and why generations of writers have found it so useful in shaping their own style.
Practicing exactly what he preaches, Gowers lays down the principles of plain English, in plain English. Read and see why this deserves to be called a classic.
When Sir Ernest Gowers first wrote Plain Words, it was intended simply as a guide to the proper use of English for the Civil Service. Within a year, however, its humour, charm and authority had made it a bestseller. Since then it has never been out of print.
Six decades on, writer Rebecca Gowers has created a new edition of this now-classic work that both revises and celebrates her great-grandfather's original. Plain Words has been updated to reflect numerous changes in English usage, yet Sir Ernest's distinctive, witty voice is undimmed. And his message…
