How to be Cool

Cool can't be taught. That's the received wisdom, yet this wry, entertaining compendium by Thomas W. Hodgkinson (author of the indispensable How to Sound Cultured) shows that, on the contrary, anyone can increase their cool quotient by learning from the masters and the methods of the past.It's never an easy journey. But to set yourself on the path to true cool, you'll need this invaluable roadmap.

This is a cool book. I'm a 69-year-old Republican who lives on a tree farm and drives a station wagon. I know everything about being uncool. And Thomas W. Hodgkinson is cool with that. Read his book and find out how you're a fool to be cool if you can't dare to be square. It's all cool., Being hip is no longer a young person's game

Thomas W. Hodgkinson is the co-author of How to Sound Cultured (Icon, 2015) and author of the novel Memoirs of a Stalker (Silvertail, 2015). He writes regularly for The Spectator and the Daily Mail, and is a contributing editor at The Week. He lives in North London.