EL本棚紹介(54) The Illustrated History of Football, by David Squires

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Do you like football (or “soccer” in American English)? Or do you LOVE it? Football is not just a sport. For many people, it is an obsession or even a way of life. This book is written for football nerds (otaku), but it also makes fun of the various people, institutions, and events in football history.

The book is made up of two-page chapters. The first page is 4-5 short paragraphs introducing a topic. The second page is a comic about the same topic. The writing often follows a pattern of mixing together true historical facts and jokes. Do not read this book expecting to learn a lot about the history of football; read it expecting to be entertained and maybe learn something about football. Because each chapter is so short, this is a good book to pick up, flip to a random page, and just read one chapter at a time.

NOTE: Although there is no nudity or sex in this book, some of the jokes are crude or sexual.

My two cents: If you read carefully, you can definitely learn about British humor, which can be very different from American or Japanese humor.