Britain and America have a new word to describe their relationship: essential replaced special as the term used during Barack Obama’s state visit to Britain. Justin Webb would prefer all adjectives to be abandoned in an effort to tell the real story. Notes on Them & Us is a wry account of the transatlantic friendship as it actually exists today - how Americans see us, how we Brits see them - and Webb, presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme and formerly the BBC’s North American editor for eight years, is perfectly placed to comment. An amusing, myth-breaking, unflinchingly honest read, this is not an attack on either the English or the Americans. Webb concludes that there is a fault line in the long-standing marriage between these two great nations, a cultural divide that separates us. And he argues that recognising this divide, even celebrating it, is the key to a rich future collaboration.