Caroline Taggart has worked in publishing for nearly 30 years, the last 18 of them as a freelance editor of non-fiction. She has edited innumerable natural history titles, notably Jonathan Scott's Big Cat Diary books and the tie-in to the BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs, as well as books on gardening, cookery, health, witchcraft, pop music, the Blitz, the D-Day landings, the House of Commons and the English language. She has also written a handbook for mature students and an encyclopaedia of dogs. The first book Caroline wrote was I Used To Know That, a Sunday Times bestseller published in 2008. This was followed by My Grammar and I (also a Sunday Times bestseller), Answers to Rhetorical Questions, A Classical Education, An Apple A Day and Pushing the Envelope. Her books have appeared in the Sunday Times, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Sun and many other publications, and her frequent television and radio appearances include BBC1 Breakfast, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 5 Live.
medieval poet and monk called John Lydgate wrote (I’ve updated his spelling, as I have with similar quotations throughout this book), ‘Word is but wind; leave word and take the deed.’
