
Patrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. Since 2011 O'Rourke has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s. He is the author of 20 books, of which his latest, The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again), was released January 2014. This was preceded on September 21, 2010, by Don't Vote! – It Just Encourages the Bastards, and on September 1, 2009, Driving Like Crazy with a reprint edition published on May 11, 2010. According to a 60 Minutes profile, he is also the most quoted living man in The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations.
With All the Trouble in the World, P. J. O'Rourke once again landed on best-seller lists around the country, confirming his reputation as the pre-eminent political humorist of our time. Attacking fashionable worries - all those terrible problems that are constantly on our minds and in the news, but about which most of us have no real clue - P. J. crisscrosses the globe in search of solutions to today's most vexing issues, including overpopulation, famine, plague, and multiculturalism, and in the process produces a hilarious and informative book which ensures that the concept of political correctness will never be the same again. "One of the funniest, most insightful, dead-on-the-money books of the year." - Los Angeles Times; "All the Trouble in the World is O'Rourke's best work since Parliament of Whores." - The Houston Post; "The dispatches are unfailingly funny....Mr. O'Rourke gets to the heart of the matter with a steady stream of wisecracks....Economists, political scientists and sociologists are inclined to approach the ills of society with regression analysis. P. J. O'Rourke just points and laughs. Not surprisingly, it is Mr. O'Rourke who gets it right." - The Washington Times; "Bottom Buy the book." - The Wall Street Journal.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.9 ⭐
• 2 recommendations ❤️
Now available from Grove Press, P. J. O'Rourke's classic, best-selling guided tour of the world's most desolate, dangerous, and desperate places. "Tired of making bad jokes" and believing that "the world outside seemed a much worse joke than anything I could conjure," P. J. O'Rourke traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission, investigating the way of life in the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast. The result is Holidays in Hell--a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology. P.J.'s adventures include storming student protesters' barricades with riot police in South Korea, interviewing Communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover dressed in Arab garb in the Gaza Strip. He also takes a look at America's homegrown horrors as he braves the media frenzy surrounding the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington D.C., uncovers the mortifying banality behind the white-bread kitsch of Jerry Falwell's Heritage USA, and survives the stultifying boredom of Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration. Packed with P.J.'s classic riffs on everything from Polish nightlife under communism to Third World driving tips, Holidays in Hell is one of the best-loved books by one of today's most celebrated humorists.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 4.0 ⭐
Called "an everyman's guide to Washington" (The New York Times), P. J. O'Rourke's savagely funny and national best-seller Parliament of Whores has become a classic in understanding the workings of the American political system. Originally written at the end of the Reagan era, this new edition includes an extensive foreword by the renowned political writer Andrew Ferguson -- showing us that although the names and the players have changed, the game is still the same. Parliament of Whores is an exuberant, broken-field run through the ethical foibles, pork-barrel flimflam, and bureaucratic bullrorfle inside the Beltway that leaves no sacred cow unskewered and no politically correct sensitivities unscorched.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.9 ⭐
In the spirit of his savagely funny and national best-seller Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance is P. J. O'Rourke's number one New York Times best-selling follow-up. O'Rourke runs hilariously amok by tackling the death of Communism, sanctimonious liberals, and America's perennial bad guy Saddam Hussein in a series of classic dispatches from his coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. Here is our most mordant and unnervingly funny political satirist on: Kuwait City after the Gulf War: "It looked like all the worst rock bands in the world had stayed there at the same time." On Saddam Hussein, O'Rourke muses: "He's got chemical weapons filled with ... chemicals. Maybe he's got The Bomb. And missiles that can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Spokane. Stock up on nonperishable foodstuffs. Grab those Diet Coke cans you were supposed to take to the recycling center and fill them up with home heating oil. Bury the Hummel figurines in the yard. We're all going to die. Details at eleven."
In the tradition of his contemporary classic Parliament of Whores , renowned political humorist P. J. O’Rourke is back with Eat the Rich , in which he takes on the global economy. P. J. O'Rourke leads us on a hysterical whirlwind world tour from the “good capitalism” of Wall Street to the “bad socialism” of Cuba in search of the answer to an age-old “Why do some places prosper and thrive, while others just suck?” With stops in Albania, Sweden, Hong Kong, Moscow, and Tanzania, O’Rourke takes a look at the complexities of economics with a big dose of the incomparable wit that has made him one of today’s most refreshing commentators. Now updated with new material from the O'Rourke, fifteen years after the original publication of his riotous first take. “O’Rourke has done the he’s made money funny.”— Forbes FYI “[O’Rourke is] witty, smart and—though he hides it under a tough coat of cynicism—a fine reporter . . . Delightful.”— New York Times Book Review
نشر كتاب آدم سميث (ثروة الامم) للمرة الأولى عام 1776م، وأقر الجميع على الفور تقريبا بأهميته الجوهرية والحاسمة في فهم علم الاقتصاد،وعد سفرا ضخما. ومثلما اشار أوروك، فإن القارئ يحتاج لفهم كتاب ثروة الامم إلى قراءة متأنية لكتاب ضخم آخر ألفه سميث قبله وهو كتاب (نظرية العواطف الأخلاقية). لكن القارئ الآن ليس مضطرا لتحمل عناء قراءة أي منهما فقد قام أوروك بالمهمة نيابة عنه.في هذا الكتاب الممتع، يظهر لنا أوروك، بأسلوبه الرشيق الساخر، السبب الذي جعل سميث معاصرا ووثيق الصلة بالواقع الراهن، ولماذا يحظى تقسيم العمل وحرية التجارة والسعي وراء المصلحة الشخصية بأهمية حيوية وأساسية لسعادة البشر ورفاهيتهم. ثم يفجر الكاتب قنبلته ليعلن أن سميث أبعد مايكون عن الرمز المجسد لقسوة الرأسمالية وأنانيتها فهو في الحقيقة فيلسوف اخلاقي مدافع عن الحرية.يقول أوروك" بدا الأمر وكان سميث بعد ان أثبت قدرتنا جميعا على جني مزيد من المال، ألااد إثبات أن المال لايشتري السعادة. لا، لايشتري السعادة بل يؤجرها".
No comedian could have written the joke this election cycle has been. The punch line is too ridiculous (whoever the punch line is going to be). Or, as celebrated political satirist, journalist, and diehard Republican P. J. O'Rourke put it in his endorsement of Democratic candidate Hillary "America is experiencing the most severe outbreak of mass psychosis since the Salem witch trials of 1692."In his latest book, P.J. brings his critical eye and inimitable voice to some serious risky business. How the Hell Did This Happen? begins with him diving into the pig pile of presidential candidates circa June 2015 including Jim ("who?") Webb, Scott Walker ("America's chance to have a President who gets carded every time he orders a beer"), Ted Cruz ("crazy like a fox--no, like a Fox News broadcast), Bernie Sanders ("Trump for people still living in their parents' basements"), and Donald Trump himself ("Landlord of the Flies"). P.J. eviscerates each frontrunner as he or she emerges from under the rock where they've all been living. He covers the dreadful key primaries and candidate debates, takes us through his come-to-Satan moment with Hillary, and leads the way into the Beginning of End Times in November.
Readers may be shocked to discover that America's most provocative (and conservative) satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, was at one time a raving pinko, with scars on his formerly bleeding heart to prove it. In Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut, O'Rourke chronicles the remarkable trajectory that took him from the lighthearted fun of the revolutionary barricades to the serious business of the nineteenth hole. How did the O'Rourke of 1970, who summarized the world of "grown-ups" as "materialism, sexual hang-ups, the Republican party, uncomfortable clothes, engagement rings, car accidents, Pat Boone, competition, patriotism, cheating, lying, ranch houses, and TV" come to be in favor of all of those things? What causes a beatnik-hippie type, comfortable sleeping on dirty mattresses in pot-addled communes - as P. J. did when he was a writer for assorted "underground" papers-to metamorphosize into a right-wing middle-aged grouch? Here, P. J. shows how his Socialist idealism and avant-garde aesthetic tendencies were cured and how he acquired a healthy and commendable interest in national defense, the balanced budget, Porsches, and Cohiba cigars. P. J. O'Rourke's message is that there's hope for all those suffering from acute Bohemianism, or as he puts it, "Pull your pants up, turn your hat around, and get a job." "From the fictionalized accounts of his career as a hard-drinking hippie to the Benchley-in-the-age-of-macho lampoon of fly fishing, Mr. O'Rourke shows an incorrigible comic gift and an eye for detail that keeps the wild stuff grounded." - The New York Times Book Review
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.9 ⭐
"I think our agenda is clear. We are opposed to: government spending, Kennedy kids, seat-belt laws, busing our children anywhere other than Yale, trailer courts near our vacation homes, all tiny Third World countries that don't have banking secrecy laws, aerobics, the UN, taxation without tax loopholes, and jewelry on men. We are in favor of: guns, drugs, fast cars, free love (if our wives don't find out), a sound dollar, and a strong military with spiffy uniforms. There are thousands of people in America who feel this way, especially after three or four drinks. If all of us would unite and work together, we could give this country. . . well, a real bad hangover." "To say that P. J. O'Rourke is funny is like saying the Rocky Mountains are scenic-accurate but insufficient. At his best he's downright exhilarating . . . Republican Party Reptile is as rambunctiously entertaining as a greased pig catching contest. If you can find a funnier writer than P. J. O'Rourke, buy him a brandy, but don't lend him the keys to your pickup." -- Chicago Tribune; "Republican Party Reptile is hilarious. I laughed so hard reading this book that my armchair needs reupholstering. P. J. O'Rourke has got to be the funniest writer going, and boy does he go. This is high-octane wit, S. J. Perelman on acid." -- Christopher Buckley.
In Modern Manners cultural guru P. J. O'Rourke provides the essential accessory for the truly contemporary man or woman-a rulebook for living in a world without rules.Traditionally, good manners were a means of becoming as bland and invisible as everyone else, and thus of avoiding calling attention to one's own awkwardness and stupidity. Today, with everyone wanting to appear special, stupidity is at a premium and manners-as outrageous and bizarre as possible-are a wonderful way to distinguish ourselves, or have a fine time trying.Modern Manners is an irreverent and hilarious guide to anti-etiquette that offers pointed advice on a range of topics from sex and entertaining to reading habits and death. With the most up-to-date forms of vulgarity, churlishness, and presumption, the latest fashions in discourtesy and barbarous display, P. J. O'Rourke makes it easier for all of us to survive with style in a rude world.
With his latest national best seller, Peace Kills, P.J. O'Rourke casts his ever-shrewd and mordant eye on America's latest adventures in warfare. Imperialism has never been more fun.To unravel the mysteries of war, O'Rourke first visits "Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months later and bomb the country next to where it's happening." He travels to Israel at the outbreak of the intifada. He flies to Egypt in the wake of the 9/11 terrorists' attacks and contemplates bygone lunacies. "Why are the people in the Middle East so crazy? Here, at the pyramids, was an answer from the earliest days of People have always been crazy." He covers the demonstrations and the denunciations of war. "A moral compass needle needs a butt end. Wherever direction France is pointing-toward collaboration with Nazis, accommodation with communists, existentialism, Jerry Lewis, or a UN resolution veto-we can go the other way with a quiet conscience." Finally he arrives in Baghdad with the U.S. Army and, standing in one of Saddam's palaces, decides, "If a reason for invading Iraq was needed, felony interior decorating would have sufficed."
Put the country's big, fat political ass on a diet. Lose that drooping deficit. Slim those spreading entitlement programs. Firm up that flabby pair of butt cheeks which are the Senate and the House.Having had a lot of fun with what politicians do, P.J. O'Rourke now has a lot of fun with what we should think about those politicians. Nothing good, to be sure. Best-selling humorist P.J. O’Rourke is back with his latest political masterpiece, Don't Vote—It Just Encourages The Bastards. Using his signature wit and keen observational skills, O’Rourke reflects on his forty year career as a political commentator, spanning his addlepated hippie youth to his current state of right-wing grouch maturity. Don't Vote—It Just Encourages The Bastards is a brilliant, disturbing, hilarious and sobering look at why politics and politicians are a necessary evil--but only just barely necessary. Read P.J. O'Rourke on the pathetic nature of politics and laugh
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.6 ⭐
A collection spanning thirty years, chronicling famed humorist and gearhead P. J. O’Rourke’s love affair with the automobile from mid-twentieth century to now—from heyday to sickbay.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.7 ⭐
From P. J. O'Rourke, best-selling author and expert bachelor, comes a hilarious look at domestic life. Or, as P. J. puts it, "This is a book about cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping for people who don't know how to do any of those things and aren't about to learn." In addition to debunking popular myths about bachelors (they are in fact not creatures known to hang around the house in silk smoking jackets, sipping brandy from oversized snifters) P. J. offers some useful sections on cleaning - or how best to avoid doing it: "Spill something fresh on the floor because a slippery floor is much more like a clean, waxed floor than a stinky floor is."; "Every month or so, take the curtains down-and throw them away. Turn the lights off if you don't want the neighbors to see what you're doing. The same goes for slipcovers."; "Don't use Drano if a toilet gets clogged. Remembering, the toilet is a dog's idea of Perrier. And you don't want a dog with a melted tongue."; "Sheets can be kept clean by getting drunk and falling asleep with your clothes on." In the inimitable style that has made him one of America's most popular humorists, P. J. provides an essential guide to the practical business of living in the modern world and proves that "Camus had it all wrong about the myth of Sisyphus - it's not symbolic of life, just housekeeping." "To say that P.J. O'Rourke is funny is like saying that the Rocky Mountains are scenic - accurate but insufficient." - Chicago Tribune
Observations on the present political moment, and the discord that defines it, from the best man for the job: bestselling author and acclaimed satirist P.J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke says we've worked ourselves into a state of anger and perplexity, and it's no surprise because perplexed and angry are what Americans have been since the Roanoke Colony got lost. This astute and entertaining look at the state of these United States includes essays on everything from our fraught history ("Oh Beautiful for . . . Pilgrim Feet?") to the political effects of social media, ("Whose Bright Idea Was It to Make Sure that Every Idiot in the World Is in Touch with Every Other Idiot?"). A plan is advanced to reform federal poverty programs, "Just Give Them the Money." And a rant is made against the "Internet of Things" because your juicer is sending fake news to your Fitbit about what's in your refrigerator.Included is a quiz to determine whether you're a "Coastal" or a "Heartlander" (you know organic, fair-traded, locavore, and gluten-free, but do you know hay from straw?), an impassioned plea to license politicians (we license beauticians!), and much more. This is P. J. at his finest.
P.J. O’Rourke began writing funny things in 1960s “underground” newspapers, became editor-in-chief of National Lampoon, then spent 20 years reporting for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic Monthly as the world’s only trouble spot humorist, going to wars, riots, rebellions, and other “Holidays in Hell” in more than 40 countries.Now O’Rourke, born at the peak of the Baby Boom, turns his keen eye on himself and his 75 million accomplices in making America what it is today. With laughter as an analytical tool, he uses his own very average, if sometimes uproarious experiences as a key to his exceptional age cohort. He writes about the way the post-war generation somehow came of age by never quite growing up and created a better society by turning society upside down. THE BABY BOOM: How it Got That Way… And It Wasn’t My Fault… And I’ll Never Do It Again is at once a social history, a group memoir of collectively impaired memory, a hilarious attempt to understand his generation’s messy hilarity, and a celebration of the mess the Baby Boom has made.
The Barnes & Noble ReviewIn his bestselling Eat the Rich, smart-mouthed Republican commentator P. J. O'Rourke gave a slap in the face to the American economy. In Parliament of Whores, he took a long, hard look at our government, wagging his finger at its inadequacies. Now fans and foes alike can find out what it's like to live with a self-proclaimed "political nut," in his latest, The CEO of the Sofa. Readers inclined to the political left, beware. With a sharp supporting cast of characters featuring his assistant, Max; his teenage godson, Nick; his wife, two kids, and their teenage babysitter, O'Rourke is at the top of his game, rambling and ranting on every topic from the United Nations to childcare, from Social Security to India -- all the while attempting not to offend his Democrat neighbors, especially "when they own a snow blower that I'm going to need to borrow." From the living room to the bedroom, the garage to the kitchen, O'Rourke explains why managers should refer to baby books in dealing with everyone from the regional sales director to the president of the United States (" 'You control him,' says Your One-Year-Old, 'by controlling the surroundings and by just not having too many things around that will get him into difficulty...' Interns for one."); and spreads the truth about how Social Security works ("There is no money in the Social Security trust fund, and there never was. Money is a government IOU. Government can't create a trust fund by saving its own IOUs anymore than I could create a trust fund by writing 'I get a chunk of cash when I turn 21' on a piece of paper"). With hallmark acidity, O'Rourke spares no rancor for Hillary Clinton, whom he calls a "she-ape from New York State," analyzing the arguments for why she may or may not be a dunce (Argument Contra Stupidity: "Partner in most prestigious law firm in Arkansas" / Argument Pro: "Examine phrase 'Most prestigious law firm in Arkansas' "); and tearing into her book, It Takes a Village ("Nearly everything about It Takes a Village is objectionable, from the title -- an ancient African proverb which seems to have its origins in the ancient African kingdom of Hallmarkcardia -- to the acknowledgements page where Mrs. Clinton fails to acknowledge that some poor journalism professor named Barbara Feinman did most of the work"). In a section divided into months from September 2000 to August 2001, readers are treated to a look at the humble home life of a political nut -- with glimpses of wine tasting with Chris Buckley, driving lessons with his godson, and his assistant Max's itemized update on current celebrities ("Just Between Max and PJ: [Will] Smith is talented, has a sense of humor, and you would, in fact, even like his music. Do not let this get out or it will ruin his career"). But while The CEO of the Sofa will give even the liberal a belly laugh at times, O'Rourke is not for the faint of heart, advising his readers, "It's important to remember that Democrats aren't just crazy, they're evil." In other words, if you can't take the heat, stay out of P. J. O'Rourke's kitchen. (Elise Vogel)
P.J. O'Rourke is one of today's most celebrated political humorists, and has been hailed as "the funniest writer in America" by both Time and The Wall Street Journal. Two decades ago he published the classic travelogue Holidays in Hell, in which he traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission to what were then some of the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast.In Holidays in Heck, P.J. embarks on supposedly more comfortable and allegedly less dangerous travels--often with family in tow--which mostly leave him wishing he were under artillery fire again. The essays take O'Rourke on a whirlwind of adventures, beginning at the National Mall in Washington, which he describes as having been designed with the same amazing "greatest generation" aesthetic sensibility that informed his parents' living room. We follow him as he takes his family on a ski vacation (to the Aspen of the Midwest--Ohio--where the highest poin
After decades covering war and disaster, bestselling author and acclaimed satirist P. J. O’Rourke takes on his scariest subjects yet―business, investment, finance, and the political chicanery behind them. Want to get rich overnight for free in 3 easy steps with no risk? Then don’t buy this book. (Actually, if you believe there’s a book that can do that, you shouldn’t buy any books because you probably can’t read.) P.J.’s approach to business, investment, and finance is different. He takes the risks for you in his chapter “How I Learned Economics by Watching People Try to Kill Each Other.” He proposes “A Way to Raise Taxes That We’ll All Love”―a 200% tax on celebrities. He offers a brief history of economic transitions before exploring the world of high tech innovation with a chapter on “Unnovations,” which asks, “The Internet―whose idea was it to put all the idiots on earth in touch with each other?” He misunderstands bitcoin, which seems “like a weird scam invented by strange geeks with weaponized slide rules in the high school Evil Math Club.” He closes with a fanciful short story about the morning that P.J. wakes up and finds that all the world’s goods and services are free! This is P.J. at his finest, a book not to be missed.
National Lampoons High School Yearbook: First released in 1974 and a two-million-plus bestseller, National Lampoon’s 1964 High School Yearbook is the premier property of the most recognized brand in comedy and the perfect introduction to Rugged Land’s new National Lampoon Books imprint.Brief Description:Welcome back, graduates of the 1964 class of C. Estes Kefauver High School in Dacron, Ohio! They’re all back in glorious black and white with color Magic Marker–Chuck U. Farley, Maria Teresa Spermatozoa, Purdy “Psycho” Lee Spackle, Faun Laurel Rosenberg, and, of course, Dacron’s most famous son, Larry Kroger. Learn everything there is to know about Kroger’s past before he became the pop-culture legend Pinto (Tom Hulce), the virgin fraternity pledge in National Lampoon’s Animal House. With a hilarious “Where are they now?” addendum and a brilliantly funny new introduction by P. J. O’Rourke, the 39th Reunion Edition is sure to be the talk of the baby boomers who grew up with National Lampoon and of the new generation of comedy fans spawned by the success of The Onion.
An essential collection of career-spanning writings by the political satirist and #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Parliament of Whores. From his early pieces for the National Lampoon, through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone’s International Affairs editor in the 1980s and 1990s, and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis, P. J. O’Rourke has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane prose, a gonzo Republican attitude, and a rare ability to make you laugh out loud. Christopher Buckley once described his work as “S. J. Perelman on acid.” Thrown Under the Omnibus brings together his funniest, most outrageous, most controversial, and most loved pieces in the definitive O’Rourke reader. Handpicked and introduced by the humorist himself, Thrown Under the Omnibus is the essential O’Rourke anthology. “The funniest writer in America.” —The Wall Street Journal
Written with the same acerbic wit and infectious humor that has made P. J. O'Rourke one of the most popular political satirists of all time, The Enemies List will keep you howling and his enemies scowling. From Noam Chomsky to Yoko Ono, from Peter, Paul, and Mary (yes, they're still alive) to all the people who think quartz crystals cure herpes, from Ralph Nader to the entire country of Sweden, P. J. O'Rourke has created a roster of the most useless, politically disgraceful, and downright foolish people around. Although a rating system of S=Silly, VS=Very Silly, SML=Shirley MacLaine was ultimately cast aside, the distinguishing feature of the cluster of dunces presented here is silliness, not political subversion. The Enemies List began as an article in the American Spectator and, as readers contributed their own suggestions, quickly grew into a hilarious and slashing commentary on politicians and celebrities alike. Now they have been named, we just need to figure out what to do with them. "To say that P. J. O'Rourke is funny is like saying that the Rocky Mountains are scenic - accurate but insufficient." - Chicago Tribune
The sequel to "National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook "and considered the Rosetta stone of news parody, "National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper" is a cult classic of puerile genius.--------------------------------"Dateline: "Dacron, Ohio, Sunday, February 12, 1978 (Motor Home Capital of the World) Now in a vibrant tabloid format, the Dacron, Ohio "Republican-Democrat," one of America's newspapers, returns with a complete Sunday edition of all the news that's unfit to print. With stories and photos that are as remarkably plausible today as they were in 1978, the "Republican-Democrat" is littered with grade-A-quality humor. Including National News, Local News, and More Local News, a Sports Section, Entertainment, Television Listings, Travel, Real Estate, Gardening, Your Pet, Women's Pages, Classified Ads, a Swillmart Discount Store Advertising Supplement, a Parade Magazine Parody, a Sunday Week Local Magazine, and Eight Pages of Comics, it will take you back in time even if you were never there to begin with. Any fan of "The Onion" will discover its recipe for success-take "National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper," rejigger the news to reflect today's absurdity, and maintain the "National Lampoon's" pitch-perfect mimicry of editorial and design. Ask any comedy writer at work today, and she or he will tell you that "National Lampoon's 1964 High School Yearbook "and "National Lampoon's Sunday Newspaper" are the sine qua non of written humor.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.9 ⭐
A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O’Rourke on subjects ranging from government (“Giving money and power to politicians is like giving car keys and whiskey to teenage boys”) to fishing (”a sport invented by insects and you are the bait”) to apps (“we need a no-app app—let’s call it a nap”) to be published on what would have been his 75 th birthday. “P. J. O’Rourke was the funniest writer of his generation, one of the smartest and one of the most prolific. Now that he belongs to the ages, P.J. takes his rightful place along with Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker in the Pantheon of Quote Gods.”—Christopher Buckley from his introductionWhen The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations was published in 1994, P. J. O’Rourke had more entries than any living writer. And he kept writing funny stuff for another 28 years. Now, for the first time, the best material is collected in one volume. Edited by his longtime friend and member of the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame Terry McDonell, THE FUNNY STUFF is arranged in six sections, organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. From his earliest days at the National Lampoon in the 1970s, through his classic reporting for Rolling Stone in the 80s and 90s to his post-Trump, pandemic, new media observations of recent years, P.J. produced incisive, amusing copy. Not only did P.J. write memorable one-liners, he also meticulously constructed riffs that built to a crescendo of hilarity and outrage—and are still being quoted years later. His prose has the electric verbal energy of Tom Wolfe or Hunter Thompson, but P.J. is more flat out funny. And through it all comes his clear-eyed take on politics, economics, human nature—and fun. THE FUNNY STUFF is a book for P.J. fans to devour but also a book that will bring new readers and stand as testament to one of the truly original American writers of the last 50 years.
by P.J. O'Rourke
Rating: 3.3 ⭐
From the editors of Men's Journal comes a manual for the modern man who believes that life is, or should be, an adventure.At once entertaining and comprehensive, this book covers Adventure, Competitive Sports, Fitness and Health, Women, Skills, and Vices, with over 150 essays offering the best advice and inspiration from the leading experts in their fields. From learning to skydive to tightening those abs to picking just the right wine -- The Great Life is a smart, fast-paced, and user-friendly roadmap to life beyond work and money. Each section is enhanced with sidebars, photos, quotes, charts, quizzes, step-by-step instructions, and pithy cartoons.The Great Life features some of the smartest and funniest writers to have picked up a pen, including P. J. O'Rourke, George Plimpton, Kurt Vonnegut, and Sebastian Junger, as well as seasoned Men's Journal journalists, such as Jim Thornton and Jim Harrison.