It could have been so much more, but only in comparison to several of his other books, written about settings which he knew far better.
An immigrant's view on English. First published in 1946 this little book is still funny and rings true. The book is full of awesome quotes like: In the last century, when a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut off without much ceremony; ...
George Mikes was an alien. He wrote the book in 1946 to show the British how he felt about them. He is funny, rude and mocks them as often as possible. But somehow, though he didn't intend the book to be amusing, the English people read it and thought it was funny. Many continentals think life is a ...
There is an anecdote in this book that I have often thought about. When Mikes was a young man, he worked for a while as a clerk at a lawyer's office in Budapest. One morning, he assisted in a large property transaction. Things were not done electronically in those days, and the seller had come in wi...