'A sprinkling of delightful nuggets about the uses and abuses of the English language'

Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

'After reading The Last Word you may feel compelled to tell a "fib" - a poem whose syllables follow the Fibonacci sequence - one of myriad delights in Ben Macintyre's musings on language. Discover the accidental poetry of e-mail spam and the literary joy of peculiar cricketing terms'

The Times Books of the Year

'Macintyre is simply a splendidly well-read man ... These pieces come up fresh and even wiser, and all the better for being so collated'

Observer