Scorn With Added Vitriol - Matthew Parris

Bonus Review: Scorn With Added Vitriol by Matthew Parris

This a fun little book full of hundreds (possibly more than a thousand?) of collected short insults and curses on a wide variety of topics, throughout history to the present day. There are enough in here to appeal to peoples' different senses of humour – everything from open vulgarity to suave lines from Oscar Wilde - and I've enjoyed picking out my favourites to post on my Facebook feed.

Parris has sorted them into themes, some neatly arranged so that they seem to answer each other in an ongoing argument. A great little stocking-filler, ideal for dipping into on a coffee table, in the bathroom, or (my personal favourite) during video game loading screens.

A substantial addition

Thanks to a combination of some books passed on to me by a friend, and a totally necessary visit to an Oxfam bookshop on the way back to the station, my trip to Bath yesterday has increased by collection quite a bit. Plus I got to eat a meringue the size of my face - always a bonus.

Today's haul consists of:
The World According to Bob by James Bowen
An Arsène Lupin Omnibus by Maurice Leblanc
Armadale by Wilkie Collins (the only fictional novel by him that I haven't read yet, I think)
Parker Pyne Investigates and The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
The King's Evil and The Repentant Rake by Edward Marston
Cool Repentance by Antonia Fraser
Scorn with Added Vitriol by Matthew Parris (I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't written by this one)
The first 3 novels in the Poldark Saga by Winston Graham
The Herb of Grace by Elizabeth Goudge
A Twist of Fate by Joanna Rees
The Secret Between Us by Louise Douglas
All Manners of Food by Stephen Mennell (a history of food and tastes throughout the ages, apparently)

Not bad - a bit of a random selection, but the majority were free and there's a good bit of detective and historical stuff in there.