It only took me forever to finish this. Not because it was bad but because I put it down and forgot about it.

This was filled with humor, obscure facts and some interesting history.  Not a bad read at all.  

This was a fun albeit superficial overview of drinking habits of various cultures at different time periods. The humour mostly worked for me and the book was interesting, but the tone probably wouldn't work for a lot of people. Probably the most interesting portion for me was the description of start of the gin craze in Britain in the 18th century and the argument that prohibition in the US was successful because it basically abolished the old-style saloons.

TITLE:   A Short History of Drunkenness

AUTHOR:  Mark Forsyth

DATE PUBLISHED: 2017

FORMAT:  Hardcover

ISBN-13:  9780241297681

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DESCRIPTION:

" Almost every culture on earth has drink, and where there's drink there's drunkenness. But in every age and in every place drunkenness is a little bit different. It can be religious, it can be sexual, it can be the duty of kings or the relief of peasants. It can be an offering to the ancestors, or a way of marking the end of a day's work. It can send you to sleep, or send you into battle.

A Short History of Drunkenness traces humankind's love affair with booze from our primate ancestors through to Prohibition, answering every possible question along the way: What did people drink? How much? Who did the drinking? Of the many possible reasons, why? On the way, learn about the Neolithic Shamans, who drank to communicate with the spirit world (no pun intended), marvel at how Greeks got giddy and Romans got rat-arsed, and find out how bars in the Wild West were never quite like in the movies.

This is a history of the world at its inebriated best."

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REVIEW:

This is a very short, completely irreverant, highly entertaining, "spot" history of people getting drunk.  The writing is witty and the book amusing, but rather shallow in terms of substance.

TITLE:  The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language

AUTHOR:  Mark Forsyth

DATE PUBLISHED:  2011

FORMAT:  Hardcover

ISBN-13:  9781848313071

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DESCRIPTION:

"The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words. It's an occasionally ribald, frequently witty and unerringly erudite guided tour of the secret labyrinth that lurks beneath the English language, taking in monks and monkeys, film buffs and buffaloes, and explaining precisely what the Rolling Stones have to do with gardening."

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I have no idea what I just read, but whatever it was, it was entertaining, amusing, irreverant and fairly interesting.  ;)  If you have an interest in the origin of words, this book might just be for you.

TITLE:  A Christmas Cornucopia: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Yuletide Traditions

AUTHOR:  Mark Forsyth

DATE PUBLISHED:  2016

FORMAT:  ebook

ISBN-13:  9780241977552

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DESCRIPTION:

"The unpredictable origins and etymologies of our cracking Christmas customs

For something that happens every year of our lives, we really don't know much about Christmas.

We don't know that the date we celebrate was chosen by a madman, or that Christmas, etymologically speaking, means 'Go away, Christ'. Nor do we know that Christmas was first celebrated in 243 AD on 28 March - and only moved to 25 December in 354 AD. We're oblivious to the fact that the advent calendar was actually invented by a Munich housewife to stop her children pestering her for a Christmas countdown. And we would never have guessed that the invention of crackers was merely a way of popularizing sweet wrappers.

Luckily, like a gift from Santa himself, Mark Forsyth is here to unwrap this fundamentally funny gallimaufry of traditions and oddities, making it all finally make sense - in his wonderfully entertaining wordy way."

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Entertaining, informative, interesting, irreverant, amusing and fun reading about the Christmas.  I would have liked more indepth research though.  But this book is short and fun to read.