Dr Rudy Brasch, with his wife Li by his side, made it his life's work to track down the meanings and origins of words and phrases, myths and customs. From his early days as a fact-checker for the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Braschs thought nothing of travelling the world on the trail of the truth. So diligent were they, that they even showed where some of our standard reference books had gone astray! this world-renowned expert on the origins of customs, traditions, beliefs, superstitions and popular sayings had almost 40 books to his credit, many of which were bestsellers and were published in a number of languages. Organised alphabetically, the Book of Beginnings is 1360 pages and contains over 4000 entries.