Based on his popular Times column, Ben Macintyre's The Last Word is a treat for every Christmas stocking With his signature wit, perception and enthusiasm for the idiosyncrasies of language, Ben Macintyre will delight lovers of QI Ben Macintyre's Agent Zigzag has sold over 100,000 copies (BookScan); it was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008

'A sprinkling of delightful nuggets about the uses and abuses of the English language' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year 'After reading The Last Word you may feel compelled to tell a "fib" - a poem whose syllables follow the Fibonacci sequence - one of myriad delights in Ben Macintyre's musings on language. Discover the accidental poetry of e-mail spam and the literary joy of peculiar cricketing terms' The Times Books of the Year 'Macintyre is simply a splendidly well-read man ... These pieces come up fresh and even wiser, and all the better for being so collated' Observer

Ben Macintyre is a columnist and Associate Editor on The Times. He has worked as the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. He is the author of six previous books including Agent Zigzag, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and the Galaxy British Book Award for Biography of the Year 2008. He lives in London with his wife and three children.