Looking for a new read to add to your collection? Not sure what you'll be flicking through from the comfort of your sunlounger come summertime? Look no further than Unruly by David Mitchell!

It's a seriously funny, seriously clever history of our early kings and queens by one of our favourite comedians and cultural commentators.

This will be the most refreshing, entertaining history of England you'll have ever read.

Certainly, the funniest.

Because David Mitchell will explain how it is not all names, dates or ungraspable historical headwinds, but instead show how it's really just a bunch of random stuff that happened with a few lucky people ending up on top. Some of these said people were quite strange, but they were in charge, so we quite literally lived, and often still live, by their rules.

It's a great story. And it's this country's story. If you want to know who we are in modern Britain, you need to read this book.

About the author

David Mitchell is a BAFTA Award-winning actor, writer and comedian who has starred in many of the UK's best-loved TV shows, including Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look and Upstart Crow. He is a team captain on Would I Lie to You? (BBC One), the host of The Unbelievable Truth on Radio 4 and one of the Observer's most popular columnists. Unruly: A History of England's Kings and Queens is his first history book.

Reviews

‘Unruly is part Horrible Histories part jolly romp guided by Alan Bennett. Perhaps this is how history should be done: not by patient scholars, but by free-swearing actor-comedians cramming more ideas and jokes into their pages than many professionals have committed to print in their careers.’ - The Guardian

‘An enjoyable, rollicking read, definitely not a conventional history book’ - The Sunday Times

‘I don’t think anyone other than David Mitchell could have written this book. It’s clever, funny and makes you think quite differently about history we thought we knew’ - Dan Snow, historian and broadcaster

Our thoughts...

"I've always been a huge fan of David Mitchell when it comes to his acting and comedy but had never read any of his books, so I didn't really know what to expect. I'm not really into history but this brought it to life in a completely different way and I was hooked after a few pages. It was informative but also really funny which added a different side to the story.

David is such a good storyteller on TV shows, for example, the panel show Would I Lie to You?, and this comes across massively in his book. I learnt all about our previous kings and queens in a weird and wonderful way but had a good laugh at the same time!" - Ashleigh Jones, Senior Content Executive.

Have we left you yearning for your next summer read? Check out another of our page-turning Penguin posts here...

WIN with Penguin Books!

Ready to kick back on a lounger and get lost in a good book like this?

As part of our amazing partnership with Penguin Books, we'll also be offering one lucky bookworm the chance to win a family Jet2holiday to a choice of six destinations, plus a Penguin Book bundle worth £200! You could be jetting off to Crete, Spain, Turkey, Portugal, Fuerteventura or Malta, with all your new holiday reads in the bag too!

Find out how to enter here.

Check out the free extract, then bag yourself a copy here!