Illustrator: Godi Hofmann
Hardcover: 92 pages
Publisher: Andre Deutsch Ltd (13 Feb 1975)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0233966218
Category(ies): Humour
This originally dates from 1962, as a translation and collection of earlier articles and talks that Mikes had done for various markets, including for Radio Basel, and it's a more formal examination of the Swiss people. Or Swiss peoples as he points out, since fairly early on, he notes that many Swiss won't really consider even the neighbouring canton to be fully with it.
He's a bit more serious here than he was in How to Be an Alien, but it's still a fondly humorous examination of a country by someone who, if he didn't himself live there, had a son who did. Much of it is, of course, now out of date, yet much of it is still recognisable by those who visit the country. And Oh yes, we get Liechtenstein for free. (A country I will visit one of these days.)
Attempts to do for Switzerland what How to Be an Alien did for the English.