Ken Smith

In Junk English, Ken Smith takes on the misuse, abuse, and downright decay of the English language. His weapons? A sharp wit and an almost frightening grasp of the depths of the decline. Written so that the ordinary writer and speaker of English can readily see how the manipulation of words keeps the culture in a haze of misunderstandings and vagueness, Junk English covers the whole spectrum of the problem. In short sections such as “Butt-Covering,” “Feeble Beginnings,” “God Is on Our Team,” “Sports Talk,” and “Touchy-Feely Therapy Talk,” Smith shows how everyone from Madison Avenue to middle America has succumbed to euphemisms, mindless jargon, and weasel words. The book’s inclusion of basic advice on how to avoid lazy language shows there’s at least some hope for the future.

Between 1945 and 1970, millions of public school students were subjected to hundreds of films designed to keep them on the straight and narrow. These cultural gems "enlightened" the nation's youth about proper dating, good table manners, the evils of dope, and what happens to teens who drive too fast on prom night. Author Ken Smith embarked on an exhaustive nine-year search for these obscure educational films. The result is this fascinating stroll down memory lane. Smith has gathered titles such as Worth Waiting For, Posture Pals, Last Date, Highways of Agony, and Soapy the Germ Fighter. Included are interviews with writers and directors, detailed descriptions of these unintentionally hilarious films, and commentary on the social engineering behind them.

An insider's guide to the Bible with a focus on sex, gore and lunacy.

E. H. Carr said: "Before you study the history, study the historian." Written history often tells us more about the historian's own times than it does of the times about which he is writing. The historians and the way in which each generation has rewritten history in the light of its own preoccupations is the subject of The Changing Past. This is the first book-length survey in English that covers all the main trends in South African historiography. Starting with the first documents and histories, it goes on to trace the 19th century. British and settler "schools," Afrikaans historiography from its pre-academic 19th century phase to the present, and the liberal historians who struck out in a new direction from the 1920s. The book highlights the break with the past that historians of the "new radical school" have made in the last 15 years, and surveys the position of historical writing to the present. The canvas is delineated in bold strokes that sketch in the main outlines rather than seek an exhaustive treatment of all existing literature. This, together with a conscious effort to minimize theoretical discussion, makes it a highly readable text.

E. H. Carr said: \u201cBefore you study the history, study the historian.\u201d Written history often tells us more about the historian's own times than it does of the times about which he is writing. The historians and the way in which each generation has rewritten history in the light of its own preoccupations is the subject of The Changing Past. This is the first book-length survey in English that covers all the main trends in South African historiography. Starting with the first documents and histories, it goes on to trace the 19th century. British and settler \u201cschools,\u201d Afrikaans historiography from its pre-academic 19th century phase to the present, and the liberal historians who struck out in a new direction from the 1920s. The book highlights the break with the past that historians of the \u201cnew radical school\u201d have made in the last 15 years, and surveys the position of historical writing to the present. The canvas is delineated in bold strokes that sketch in the main outlines rather than seek an exhaustive treatment of all existing literature. This, together with a conscious effort to minimize theoretical discussion, makes it a highly readable text.

These prose pieces develop areas and images encountered elsewhere in Smith's poetry. Some are fictions, some fables, some prose poems, some ill-tempered jokes, some existential romances with mundane reality. As in the game of Chinese Whispers, messages are passed, repeated, misheard, misremembered, delicately tampered with, and fiddled with in the interests of politics, commerce and the pursuit of power. Even the language is suspect, as are our perceptions. Our hero struggles to survive against all the odds, invited apparently to forget all he knows and begin again at the beginning. Or at the end. Smith writes in the radical tradition of Borges, Brautigan, Burroughs, and Buster Keaton.