Ask the past: pertinent and impertinent advice from yesteryear

Want to know how to garden with lobsters? How to sober up? Grow a beard? Or, simply, how to make a perfect cheesy omelette? Look no further thanAsk the Past.

Chock-full of advice that has (and some that hasn't!) stood the test of time,Ask the Pastis the tongue-in-cheek compilation of hilarious and true answers to life's questions, drawn from actual antique sourcebooks by a historian and bibliophile.

From medieval headache remedies to Renaissance pick-up lines,Ask the Pastbrings you advice that will make you laugh out loud and shake your head in amazement.

Here are the answers to the questions you've always wanted to ask - 'How do I impress my boss?' or 'How do I put out a fire' - and some that you didn't know you needed to. Brimming with advice both wise and weird, and illustrated throughout with charming images from rare books,Ask the Pastoffers a surprising vision of the past, together with a hilarious menu of solutions to the knotty problems of the present - like how to kill a snake with a radish!