The Tudor era encompasses some of the greatest changes in our history. But while we know about the historical dramas of the times - most notably in the court of Henry VIII - what was life really like for a commoner like you or me? To answer this question, the renowned "method historian" and historical advisor to the BBC Ruth Goodman has slept, washed and cooked as the Tudors did - so you don't have to! She is your expert guide to this fascinating era, drawing on years of practical historical study to show how our ancestors coped with everyday life, from how they slept to how they courted. Using a vast range of sources, she takes you back to the time when soot was used as toothpaste and the "upper crust" of bread was served to the wealthier members of the house. Exploring how the Tudors learnt, danced and even sat and stood according to the latest fashion, she reveals what it all felt, smelt and tasted like, from morning until night.

We know what life was like for Victoria and Albert. But what was it like for a commoner - like you or me? How did it feel to cook with coal and wash with tea leaves? Drink beer for breakfast and clean your teeth with cuttlefish? Catch the omnibus to work and do the laundry in your corset? How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman is a radical new approach to history; a journey back in time more personal than anything before. Moving through the rhythm of the day, this astonishing guide illuminates the overlapping worlds of health, sex, fashion, food, school, work and play. Surviving everyday life came down to the gritty details, the small necessities and tricks of living and Ruth will show you how. If you liked A Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England or 1000 Years of Annoying the French, you will love this book.

Every Ending Is A New Beginning. Ruth is ignoring the news. Like most people, she has relationship problems, job stress, friends and family who need her. Ruth has a life. But the news is about to catch up with Ruth, and her problems are going to be swept away...along with the rest of the world. Only when the comforts and complications of her old existence are gone, does Ruth finally realise how she might be able to live to the fullest.

From royalty to peasantry, every age has its bad eggs, those who break all the rules and rub everyone up the wrong way. But their niggling, anti-social and irritating ways not only tell us about what upset people, but also what mattered to them, how their society functioned and what kind of world they lived in. In this brilliantly nitty-gritty exploration of real life in the Tudor and Stuart age, you will discover: - how to choose the perfect insult, whether it be draggletail, varlet, flap, saucy fellow strumpet, ninny-hammer or stinkard - why quoting Shakespeare was very poor form - why flashing the inside of your hat could repulse someone - the best way to mock accents, preachers, soldiers and pretty much everything else besides Ruth Goodman draws upon advice books and manuals, court cases and sermons, drama and imagery to outline bad behaviour from the gauche to the galling, the subtle to the outrageous. It is a celebration of drunkards, scolds, harridans and cross dressers in a time when calling a man a fool could get someone killed, and cursing wasn't just rude, it worked!

Who am I? What am I doing? How ought I to live my life? Stoicism teaches us to acknowledge our emotions, reflect on what causes them and redirect them for our own good. Whenever we worry about how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal seems more elusive. Massimo Pigliucci explores this remarkable philosophy and how its wisdom can be applied to our everyday lives in the quest for meaning. He shows how stoicism teaches us the importance of a person's character, integrity and compassion. Whoever we are, we can take something away from stoicism and, in How to be a Stoic, with its practical tips and exercises, meditations and mindfulness, he also explains how relevant it is to every part of our modern lives.

Never be at a loss for words again! Perfect your people skills with his fun, witty and informative guide, containing 92 little tricks to create big success in personal and business relationships. In How To Talk To Anyone, bestselling relationships author and internationally renowned life coach Leil Lowndes reveals the secrets and psychology behind successful communication. These extremely usable and intelligent techniques include how to: Work a party like a politician works a room Be an insider in any crowd Use key words and phrases to guide the conversation Use body language to connect This is the key to having successful conversations with anyone, any time.

As politics slides toward impulsivity, and outrage bests rationality, how can philosophy help us critically engage with the world? How to Think Like A Philosopher is a revelatory exploration of the methods, tenets and attitudes of thought that guide philosophy, and how they can be applied to our own lives. Drawing on decades of enquiry and a huge range of interviews, Julian Baggini identifies twelve key principles that promote incisive thinking. Pay attention; question everything; seek clarity, not certainty: these are just a few of philosophy’s guiding maxims which can be applied to everything from understanding the impact of climate change to correctly appraising our own temperaments. Both a fresh introduction to philosophy covering canonical and contemporary philosophers, and an essential, practical guide to good thinking, How to Think Like a Philosopher shows us the way to a more humane, balanced and rational approach to thinking, to politics, and to life.

This absorbing, ironic, bitter-sweet collection of nine stories marked Lorrie Moore’s talented debut. Sharp, cruel and funny, the stories are presented as a highly idiosyncratic guide to female existence: ‘How to be an Other Woman’, ‘How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes)’, ‘How to Become a Writer’, ‘The Kid’s Guide to Divorce’.

It's RBG like you've never seen her before! Using a unique mix of first-person narrative, hilarious comic panels, and essential facts, Dean Robbins introduces young readers to an American trailblazer. The first book in an exciting new nonfiction series, You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg focuses on Ruth's lifelong mission to bring equality and justice to all. Sarah Green's spot-on comic illustrations bring this icon to life, and engaging back matter instructs readers on how to be more like Ruth!

Navigating day-to-day life can be a tricky business. By the time we are adults, our experiences have formed our way of thinking and we have learned patterns of behaviour that are not always helpful. We must unravel these to understand, accept, nurture and allow ourselves to rise with our vulnerabilities, not in spite of them. After having a breakdown in 2011, Will Young went about the process of interrogating everything he thought he knew: how he formed his identity, what he relied on for self-esteem and how he behaved and communicated. Everything he has learned over the past ten years, he has now condensed into this easy to access A-Z guide. He digs into how everyday life can affect our wellbeing, how we can navigate our emotions, where they come from and how to create a balanced mindset, offering practical techniques we can all use to ground ourselves and set boundaries. With wit and wisdom and revealing his own vulnerabilities along the way, Will shows us how to identify destructive patterns, develop good mindful habits, be true to who we are and grow into better versions of ourselves.

Want to know the best way to thwart the ghost that haunts your local convenience store? Or how to crack a top secret code? Find out in this jam-packed guide featuring tips, activities, and the show's trademark quirky humor. From Dipper's advice on how to handle the supernatural, to unlocking codes and ciphers, to taking Mabel's fun quizzes, this imaginative guide is sure to be a hit with fans of the show! This hardcover book in the best-selling Guide to Life format features 160 pages of hilarious journal entries, full-color images, and a double-sided pull-out poster! .

Want to know the best way to thwart the ghost that haunts your local convenience store? Or how to crack a top secret code? Find out in this jam-packed guide featuring tips, activities, and the show's trademark quirky humor. From Dipper's advice on how to handle the supernatural, to unlocking codes and ciphers, to taking Mabel's fun quizzes, this imaginative guide is sure to be a hit with fans of the show! This hardcover book in the best-selling Guide to Life format features 160 pages of hilarious journal entries, full-color images, and a double-sided pull-out poster! .

I've been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life's challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call 'catching greenlights.' So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it's medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot's license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It's a love letter. To life. It's also a guide to catching more greenlights-and to realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.

Born in Hungary, George Mikes eventually spent more than forty years in the Britain observing behaviours and misbehaviours of local and foreign Brits. With essential chapters such as "How to Avoid Travelling", "On Shopping", "In Praise of Television", "On Not Complaining" and "How to Panic Quietly", you'll get to know Britain like never before. Loved by readers and authors alike, How to Be a Brit contains Mikes's three major works -- How to be an Alien, How to be Inimitable and How to be Decadent. If you're British, you'll love it; if you're a foreigner, you'll appreciate it. Queuing: "An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one." How to plan a town: "Street names should be painted clearly and distinctly on large boards. Then hide these boards carefully." Sex: "Continental people have sex lives: the English have hot water bottles." George Mikes's perceptive bestseller provides a complete guide to the British Way of Life.

The Dalai Lama is the most influential person in the world' Time In his characteristic mix of humour, wisdom and compassion the Dalai Lama shares his basic steps to enlightenment from how to meditate to how to practise wisdom. Combining spiritual teachings and practical advice, His Holiness shows us how to overcome our everyday obstacles, from feelings of anger and mistrust to jealously, insecurity and counterproductive thinking. How to Practise is an essential guide to achieving inner calm and compassion, refraining from harm and focusing the mind. It is a wonderful, heartfelt gift for anyone seeking a richer, more fulfilled life.

The Dalai Lama is the most influential person in the world' Time In his characteristic mix of humour, wisdom and compassion the Dalai Lama shares his basic steps to enlightenment from how to meditate to how to practise wisdom. Combining spiritual teachings and practical advice, His Holiness shows us how to overcome our everyday obstacles, from feelings of anger and mistrust to jealously, insecurity and counterproductive thinking. How to Practise is an essential guide to achieving inner calm and compassion, refraining from harm and focusing the mind. It is a wonderful, heartfelt gift for anyone seeking a richer, more fulfilled life.