Thrown Under the Omnibus
A Reader
-
- $15.99
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
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
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Too much of even a good thing can be tiring, as this overstuffed retrospective from the talented humorist O'Rourke (The Baby Boom) demonstrates. Surely, at some point during the compiling of this massive collection, someone must have suggested leaving out some weaker selections, such as a lighthearted essay comically referencing the Nazi use of cattle cars, or a dated ode to the bachelor life that's replete with seduction advice aimed at men who are wait for it too inept to wash their own clothes or shop for their own groceries. O'Rourke's breezy style can be fun, in short doses. His small essay "A Digression on Happiness" is bright and engaging. But his travel pieces tend to be simultaneously overlong and short on information, and his attempts to tackle big events the fall of Soviet Communism; the 9/11 terrorist attacks offer little that is new. An account of his cancer scare, "A Journey to... Let's Not Go There," is quietly affecting, but the other personal essays tend toward flippancy. At one point, O'Rourke mocks a more serious-minded author's work as weighing "more than a cinder block" oddly, the book in question came in at 70 fewer pages than O'Rourke's.
