In the mid-1990s, New York Times writer Sarah Lyall married a Brit and moved to England from her native New York. Now, after more than a decade in her adopted country, Lyall has compiled her impressions in The Anglo Files, a sharp, bone-dry and tremendously amusing study of all things British. Although an avid quaffer of tea and mother to two "proper English girls," Lyall is solidly American at heart--not actually an Anglophile at all. She tips her hand early on when she recounts a country picnic with an earl, which turned out to be . . . well, no picnic. Traveling in an ancient jalopy filled with the offal of dead birds, they drove to a decrepit barn and dined on canned tomato soup in the freezing cold. But why worry about excessive luxuries like heat? Or dental care? Or, for that matter, a written constitution? The British, Lyall says, certainly do not. Cricket, however--a game that can take whole seasons to play and whose byzantine rules defy explanation--can really get the Brits riled up. And then there are hedgehogs and badgers, for which so many protection agencies exist there are umbrella organizations to manage them all.Lyall takes on the English class system, weather and love of the drink but makes the greatest hay out of Parliament. Her essays about the House of Commons and House of Lords read like Monty Python sketches gone mad; there are Elizabethan outfits, shouting, rampant sexism and name calling--and that happens before Earl Grey and Earl Sandwich enter the building. Less wacky but no less entertaining are Lyall's descriptions of the lack of sex education in England (let's not forget Prince Charles's amorous desire to be reincarnated as a feminine hygiene product) and the (until recently) deplorable state of customer service in almost every arena. Lyall credits the famous British stiff upper lip and willingness to "get on with it" to the deprivations of World War II, which still loom large in the national consciousness. An economic boom has spurred improvements in the service industry and Princess Diana's death prompted an uncharacteristic--and cathartic--outpouring of grief, but the British, Lyall reports, still cling fast to their eccentricities. Fortunately, the British also have a deeply ironic sense of humor that, combined with their love of silliness, allows them to laugh at themselves even if that laughter takes the form of a very dry chuckle. One assumes therefore that they will enjoy Lyall's affectionate skewering as much as American readers are sure to do.--Debra Ginsberg
Shelf Talker: A clever, sharp and very witty account of all things British, written by a staunchly American transplant.