Product Description

Another perspicacious look at the byzantine nature of the secrets of business success, with hilarious close-ups of some of O'Rourke's favourilte subjects. This confirms his unassailable position as 'America's greatest prose comedian' (Sunday Times) Bestselling humorist O'Rourke introduces readers to his assistant, friends, family and smart-aleck babysitter, as he reflects on such topics as cell phones, Christmas catalogues, Instant Messaging, toddlers, TV and how the "Gettysburg Address" would have turned out if written on an iMac. He reviews Hillary Clinton, and he observes youth culture, including current celebs, Britney, Moby and Eminem. This is a witty wide-angled world view, from O'Rourke's own living room.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #337307 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-20
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
P. J. O'Rourke is the best-selling author of nine books, including Eat the Rich, Give War a Chance, Republican Party Reptile, Holidays in Hell, Parliament of Whores and All the Trouble in the World. He has written for such publications as Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New Republic, the New York Times Book Review, Parade, Harper's and Rolling Stone, where he is currently foreign affairs desk chief. He live in New Hampshire with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic
Another 5 star laugh-out-loud topical book from O'Rourke, buy it now!! Informative, opinionated, funny and perceptive - everything we expect from PJ. I particularly liked reading the topics closer to home such as children, wives, mobile phones and best of all How to Be a Business Success by Managing Toddlers. Brilliant.

PJO in fine form at a location you may recognise
For those who don't know, PJO is a modern-day essayist and article writer for numerous American publications.
He is a Republican and probably reckons Attila the Hun was a bit soft but, has an extremely caustic wit and puts forward a (currently) unpopular view point fairly well.

In this current set of essays he stays pretty close to home and he covers the end of the Clinton administration, the 3rd way, wine tasting, driving, a who's who of young people for old farts and other topics.
I don't agree with everything he writes by any stretch, but he does make me think about things from another viewpoint (market economy good, pinko-liberal-commies bad) and makes me laugh even when I maybe aught to be offended. He knows better than to take himself entirely seriously which helps (a lot).

His other books are numerous - the best if which are (IMO)
All the Trouble in the World
Give War a Chance &
Age and Guile (beat youth innocence and a bad haircut)

For those of you who find analogies useful I'd place PJ O'Rourke between Bill Bryson (nicer/softer) and Hunter S Thomson (further out ----way out).

For those of you who may have recently read Michael Moores book 'Stupid White Men' this is the opposite view and as a consequence makes for provocative reading as a pair.

O'Rourke's drift
Nine books in, I have to say PJ is palling on me -- just when he seems to have been elevated to the comic prose pantheon.

This latest rambles over familiar Peej territory -- liberals, the Third World, the stock market, alcohol -- and to be fair, still packs a few good lines. But for this reader at least the abiding impression was of another rolling off the O'Rourke cookie cutter.