Tony Thorne Books

With more than 15,000 definitions, this book provides a guide to the use of slang today. It deals with drugs, sport and contemporary society, as well as favourite slang topics such as sex and bodily functions. In this new edition of the highly acclaimed Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, language and culture expert Tony Thorne explores the ever-changing underworld of the English language, bringing back intriguing examples of eccentricity and irreverence from the linguistic front-line. Fully revised and expanded, with lively examples of usage throughout, this up-to-the-minute reference work paints a vivid picture of our cultural and social preoccupations.

A captivating guide to the national language, focusing on words that shape British identity while providing informative and entertaining insights.

This is the story of Elisabeth Bathory, a 17th-century Transylvanian countess. She was tried as a vampire and became an inspiration for depraved murderers up to the present day. This account includes both the recorded truth and the legend that has grown up around her.

A wonderfully entertaining compendium of the hundred words and phrases that have over the last century become the cornerstones of modern spoken English, and have been used - sometimes deliberately, but often inadvertently - to stake out the common identity that unites the English, to define what makes us who we are.

Are you a bobo or a wombat? Have you ever been tempted to open the kimono or kick dead whales up the beach? Have you been touched by re-enchantment or threatened by infobia? If your answer to any of these questions is 'I'm not sure' or, indeed, 'What are you talking about?', then you definitely need a copy of "Shoot the Puppy". Amusing and informative, it guides the reader through the ever-growing heap of contemporary jargon from around the English-speaking world, showing where it comes from, what it means, and what it tells us about the contemporary world and our attitudes to it.

Blind, young Londoner, Horace Mayberry can only dream about being a secret agent, until he acquires intelligent artificial eyes with superhuman abilities and is recruited into a secret government department. What if you were blind, and suddenly the government offered you a way to see again by supplying you with high-tech eyes, known as intelligent Nanotronic BioVision, allowing you to see the world, literally, in a whole new way? In return, you are to use your new points of view to serve your country, however you are asked. In the meantime, other people want to take advantage of your unique abilities as well. How do you keep yourself safe while you decide who you can trust?

Príbeh Alžbety Báthoryovej je hrôzostrašná sága, ktorá v sebe ukrýva zpár tých najhroznejších ukrutností, aké len ľudstvo dokáže vymyslieť. Uhorská šľachtičná zo 17. storočia bola obvinená z masového vraždenia a vampirizmu a zostala až dodnes symbolom krutosti, inšpiráciou sadistov a asociálov. Toto podrobné a pútavé rozprávanie je založené na výsledkoch pôvodného výskumu v archívoch východnej Európy a obsahuje tak zaznamenanú pravdu, ako i hrôzostrašnú legendu, ktorá okolo nej vznikla, oddeľujúc pritom skutočnosť od senzáciechtivého očarenia.