I'm currently reading
Man Walks into a Pub: A Sociable History of Beer by Pete Brown. Every brit should read it, and most of you foreign-types too - it's funny, informative and fascinating. Quite frankly if you drink beer you should read this book, and if you don't drink beer you should read it anyway.
The book deals with how beer came to be what it is today, and more specifically how British drinking habits, and the British pub came to be.
Some highlights include: pointing out that while the Inuit's may
* have 90 words for snow, the english have well over a hundred words for being drunk and the quite hilarious account of the 1814 Shoe Hill brewery distaster.
* - they don't actually, incidently.