‘Wonderfully entertaining … Trust me, it’s hilarious … Every page pulses with humour, ephemeral research and irresistible nuggets of useless information … His book is your life, examined by a post-modern academic in fluent and breezy style, social history at its most accessible’ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail ‘Here is a book for everyone … It is crammed with arresting facts and insights. Joe Moran writes more elegantly than a social historian has any right to … I kept wanting to read out bits of this book to my children. Partly because it sets in context the activities that will take up most of their life – and partly because it might teach them just how little that is dismissed as “boring” truly deserves the description’ Andrew Martin, Sunday Times ‘His magnifying-glass focus makes the banal and everyday surprising and often riveting … Fascinating stuff, and Moran delivers it in a relaxed and often hilarious style. It makes you yearn for a revival of the Mass-Observation projects of the late 1930s’ Kate Colquhoun, Daily Telegraph ‘An affectionate tribute to British life that’s very funny and bang up to date with chapters on email etiquette and the seven-minute lunch break. It made me want to take the author to the pub, where I’d ask him why we drink beer in pints’ Sam West, Independent ‘A thoroughly novel and refreshing way of looking at our recent history. This is “mundane” as a good thing. It is a daybreak to bedtime story told further from “them”, and nearer to “us”. Almost every page has its “yes! … I’d forgotten” moment. I loved his book enormously’ Andrew Marr ‘A wonderfully insightful probe into the habits and rituals that have made up daily life in Britain since the Second World War. Almost nothing escapes Joe Moran’s penetrating gaze; an inspired anthropologist of the ordinary, and often very funny, he turns his readers into informed observers, and gives an enhanced understanding of what we do every day without a second thought and why we do it. You’ll never eat a slice of toast, join a queue or send an email in the same way again’ Juliet Gardiner ‘Queuing for Beginners is a splendidly entertaining book. Joe Moran takes a simple but wonderfully imaginative idea, following an ordinary working day from breakfast to bedtime, and uncovers the twentieth-century history of the mundane rituals through which we structure our lives. Nothing escapes his gaze, from cereal packets to chain pubs, and the result is a deft, clever and endlessly fascinating example of social history at its best’ Dominic Sandbrook ‘An original idea that’s well-executed and of interest to anyone who’s enjoyed a fry-up, stood by a water-cooler and slept under a duvet. By interrogating the history of everyday objects and routines, Moran reveals the contingent, often extraordinary, nature of daily life in Britain, and the material culture that dominates it in the early twenty-first century. I thoroughly enjoyed it’ Richard Weight ‘Perfect summer reading’ Sunday Express ‘An admirably comprehensive and well-researched series of studies of everything from the fag break to the rush hour … His chapter on the rise of the sofa is a fine piece of social history’ Financial Times ‘Insightful and entertaining social history … Moran’s lively examination of the arcana of the ordinary reveals the monumental social and cultural changes that have transformed British life since the war’ Herald ‘Joe Moran’s lively and entertaining look into the habits that make us who we are … succeeds in showing just how much the little things in life matter’ Metro ‘Full of fascinating snippets’ Scotland on Sunday ‘Excellent book … may attract derision for its commitment to examining the most basic and visible aspects of our lives. I, for one, reckon the bleeding obvious is the best place to start’ New Statesman ‘This entertaining book reminds us that our most mundane daily activities are social history in the making’ Glasgow Evening Times ‘Moran has ingeniously compartmentalised in chapters the history of everyday life in Britain since WWII’ Aberdeen Evening Express ‘A fascinating dissection of daily life … thoroughly entertaining and informative’ Sainsbury’s Magazine ‘It’s a fast and funny read … guaranteed to delight your inner nerd’ Spiked online ‘One of those rare books written with academic rigour which has mass market appeal. As a snapshot of how life used to be and what it has become this book can’t be beaten’ www.bookbag.co.uk

‘Wonderfully entertaining … Trust me, it’s hilarious … Every page pulses with humour, ephemeral research and irresistible nuggets of useless information … His book is your life, examined by a post-modern academic in fluent and breezy style, social history at its most accessible’ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail

‘Here is a book for everyone … It is crammed with arresting facts and insights. Joe Moran writes more elegantly than a social historian has any right to … I kept wanting to read out bits of this book to my children. Partly because it sets in context the activities that will take up most of their life – and partly because it might teach them just how little that is dismissed as “boring” truly deserves the description’ Andrew Martin, Sunday Times

‘His magnifying-glass focus makes the banal and everyday surprising and often riveting … Fascinating stuff, and Moran delivers it in a relaxed and often hilarious style. It makes you yearn for a revival of the Mass-Observation projects of the late 1930s’ Kate Colquhoun, Daily Telegraph

‘An affectionate tribute to British life that’s very funny and bang up to date with chapters on email etiquette and the seven-minute lunch break. It made me want to take the author to the pub, where I’d ask him why we drink beer in pints’ Sam West, Independent

‘A thoroughly novel and refreshing way of looking at our recent history. This is “mundane” as a good thing. It is a daybreak to bedtime story told further from “them”, and nearer to “us”. Almost every page has its “yes! … I’d forgotten” moment. I loved his book enormously’ Andrew Marr

‘A wonderfully insightful probe into the habits and rituals that have made up daily life in Britain since the Second World War. Almost nothing escapes Joe Moran’s penetrating gaze; an inspired anthropologist of the ordinary, and often very funny, he turns his readers into informed observers, and gives an enhanced understanding of what we do every day without a second thought and why we do it. You’ll never eat a slice of toast, join a queue or send an email in the same way again’ Juliet Gardiner

‘Queuing for Beginners is a splendidly entertaining book. Joe Moran takes a simple but wonderfully imaginative idea, following an ordinary working day from breakfast to bedtime, and uncovers the twentieth-century history of the mundane rituals through which we structure our lives. Nothing escapes his gaze, from cereal packets to chain pubs, and the result is a deft, clever and endlessly fascinating example of social history at its best’ Dominic Sandbrook

‘An original idea that’s well-executed and of interest to anyone who’s enjoyed a fry-up, stood by a water-cooler and slept under a duvet. By interrogating the history of everyday objects and routines, Moran reveals the contingent, often extraordinary, nature of daily life in Britain, and the material culture that dominates it in the early twenty-first century. I thoroughly enjoyed it’ Richard Weight

‘Perfect summer reading’ Sunday Express

‘An admirably comprehensive and well-researched series of studies of everything from the fag break to the rush hour … His chapter on the rise of the sofa is a fine piece of social history’ Financial Times

‘Insightful and entertaining social history … Moran’s lively examination of the arcana of the ordinary reveals the monumental social and cultural changes that have transformed British life since the war’ Herald

‘Joe Moran’s lively and entertaining look into the habits that make us who we are … succeeds in showing just how much the little things in life matter’ Metro

‘Full of fascinating snippets’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Excellent book … may attract derision for its commitment to examining the most basic and visible aspects of our lives. I, for one, reckon the bleeding obvious is the best place to start’ New Statesman

‘This entertaining book reminds us that our most mundane daily activities are social history in the making’ Glasgow Evening Times

‘Moran has ingeniously compartmentalised in chapters the history of everyday life in Britain since WWII’ Aberdeen Evening Express

‘A fascinating dissection of daily life … thoroughly entertaining and informative’ Sainsbury’s Magazine

‘It’s a fast and funny read … guaranteed to delight your inner nerd’ Spiked online

‘One of those rare books written with academic rigour which has mass market appeal. As a snapshot of how life used to be and what it has become this book can’t be beaten’ www.bookbag.co.uk