From the bestselling author of Thank You for Smoking and Make Russia Great Again comes a comic tour de force, the story of one man's "lively and funny" (New York Journal of Books) journey through lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, an aging screenwriter is holed up in a coastal South Carolina town with his beloved second wife, Peaches. He's been binge-eating for a year and developed a notable rapport with the local fast-food chain Hippo King. He struggles to work--on a ludicrous screenplay about a Nazi attempt to kidnap FDR and, naturally, an article for Etymology Today on English words of Carthaginian origin. He's told Peaches so often about the origins of the word mayonnaise that she's developed an aversion to using the condiment. He thinks he has Covid. His wife thinks he is losing his mind. In short, your typical pandemic worries. Things were going from bad to worse even before his doctor suggested a battery of brain tests. He knows what that means: dementia! But even in these scary times, there are plenty of things to do to distract him. His iPhone is fat-shaming him. He's. been trying to read Proust and thinks the French novelist missed his true calling as a parfumier. And he's discovered nefarious Russian influence on the local coroner's face. Why is Putin so keen to control who decides who died peacefully and who by foul play in Pimento County. Could it be the local military base? Has Anyone Seen My Toes? is a "laugh-out-loud" (Publishers Weekly) romp through a time that has been anything but funny.

All the virtues of Bill Buckley's earlier books are here--but this one is profoundly different. 1990 was a very good year, producing vintage Buckley. He celebrated deeply meaningful anniversaries: the fortieth year of his marriage; the fortieth since his graduation from Yale; the thirty-fifth from National Review, the magazine he founded, and then decided--to considerable shock--to retire from editing. In the year in which he became a senior citizen, he appeared, daringly, as a harpsichordist with two symphony orchestras; wrote a controversial book advocating voluntary national service, a proposal not calculated to endear him to his fellow conservatives; and endured the death of a close friend. Thus is completed (perhaps) the end of several affairs--and the capstone volume of a diarist-journal keeper-journalist, who has proved to be, over books at sea and on land (Cruising Speed, The Unmaking of a Mayor, Airborne, Atlantic High, Overdrive, Racing Through Paradise), both his own Boswell and Johnson.

In an attempt to gain congressional approval for a top-secret weapons system, Washington lobbyist "Bird" McIntyre teams up with sexy, outspoken neocon Angel Templeton to pit the American public against the Chinese. When Bird fails to uncover an authentic reason to slander the nation, he and Angel put the Washington media machine to work, spreading a rumor that the Chinese secret service is working to assassinate the Dalai Lama.
Meanwhile in China, mild-mannered President Fa Mengyao and his devoted aide Gang are maneuvering desperately against sinister party hard-liners Minister Lo and General Han. Now Fa and Gang must convince the world that the People's Republic is not out to kill the Dalai Lama, while maintaining Fa's small margin of power in the increasingly militaristic environment of the party.
On the home front, Bird must contend with a high-strung wife who entertains Olympic equestrian ambition, and the qualifying competition happens to be taking place in China. As things unravel abroad, Bird and Angel's lie comes dangerously close to reality. And as their relationship rises to a new level, so do mounting tensions between the United States and China.

The Columbianna, an ancient tramp steamer with a notably eccentric crew, 200 layers of paint on her decks, a sailing history going back to 1945, and demons in her plumbing, was crossing the Atlantic for the umpteenth time-but on this occasion with a sharp-eyed observer, whose brilliant account brings to life the harshness, humor, and bizarreness of life on board. Steaming to Bamboola is a story of the author's time at sea. He tells first-hand about typhoons, cargoes, smuggling, mid-ocean burials, rescues, stowaways, hard places, hard drinking and hard romance. It is the tale of a ship and her crew, men fated to wander for a living--always steaming to, but never quite reaching, Bamboola. The was the first book by renowned author and humorist Christopher Buckley, which was originally published in 1982 to glowing reviews. Forty years and over a twenty books and hundreds of articles later, Buckley introduces Columbianna and her roguish crew to a new generation of readers.

Airborne is how William F. Buckley, Jr. describes his sail across the wide Atlantic with his son and five friends. The trip, for fifteen years a dream, for fifteen months a planned operation, was always a risk: one doesn't set out haphazardly in a small sailboat across 4,400 miles of ocean, and Buckley's account of perils of the sea as experienced by himself since he acquired his first sailboat at age thirteen is at once graphic, instructive, and terrifying. But, we learn quickly, the concern is mostly for the prospect of thirty days and thirty nights away from the cosmopolitan jungle to which he and his friends are accustomed; their lair, so to speak. But it happened: notwithstanding vicissitudes amusing, annoying, and even dangerous, suddenly the schooner, and the entire trip, were airborne, and the experience resulted in a fusion of hopes, fears, ambitions, and pleasures that lifts the book from the category of mere chronicles of the sea, into a chronicle of our time, a passage of the spirit.

In "the Trump satire we've been waiting for" (The Washington Post), award-winning and bestselling author of Thank You for Smoking delivers a hilarious and whipsmart fake memoir by Herb Nutterman--Donald Trump's seventh chief of staff--who has written the ultimate tell-all about Trump and Russia.Herb Nutterman never intended to become Donald Trump's White House chief of staff. Herb served the Trump Organization for twenty-seven years, holding jobs in everything from a food and beverage manager at the Trump Magnifica to being the first general manager of the Trump Bloody Run Golf Course. And when his old boss asks "his favorite Jew" to take on the daunting role of chief of staff, Herb, spurred on by loyalty agrees. But being the chief of staff is a lot different from being a former hospitality expert. Soon, Herb finds himself deeply involved in Russian intrigue, deflecting rumors about Mike Pence's high school involvement in a Satanic cult, and leading President Trump's reelection campaign. What Nutterman experiences is outrageous, outlandish, and otherwise unbelievable--therefore making it a deadly accurate account of being the chief of staff during the Trump administration. With hilarious jabs at the biggest world leaders and Washington politics overall, Make Russia Great Again is a timely political satire from "one of the funniest writers in the English language" (Tom Wolfe).

When the networks called the 2020 presidential election for Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, people from coast to coast exhaled--and danced in the streets. This quick-turnaround volume, a collection of 38 personal essays from writers all over the country--"many of America's most thoughtful voices," as Jon Meacham puts it--captures the week Trump was voted out, a unique juncture in American life, and helps point toward a way forward to a nation less divided. An eclectic lineup of contributors--from Rosanna Arquette, Susan Bro and General Wesley Clark to Keith Olbermann, Stewart O'Nan and Anthony Scaramucci--puts a year of transition into perspective, and summons the anxieties and hopes so many have for better times ahead. As award-winning columnist Mary C. Curtis writes in the lead essay, "Saying you're not interested in politics is dangerous because, like it or not, politics is interested in you." Novelist Christopher Buckley, a former speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, laments, "The Republican Senate, with one exception, has become a stay of ovine, lickspittle quislings, degenerate descendants of such giants as Everett Dirksen, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker and John McCain." Nero Award-winning mystery novelist Stephen Mack Jones writes, to Donald Trump, "Remember: You live in my house. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is my house. My ancestors built it at a cost of blood, soul and labor. I pay my taxes every year to feed you, clothe you and your family and staff and fly you around the country and the world in my tricked-out private jet. If you violate any aspect of your four-year lease--any aspect--Lord Jesus so help me, I will do everything in my power to kick yo narrow ass to the curb." As Publisher Steve Kettmann writes in the Introduction: "The hope is that in putting out these glimpses so quickly, giving them an immediacy unusual in book publishing, we can help in the mourning for all that has been lost, help in the healing (of ourselves and of our country), and help in the pained effort, like moving limbs that have gone numb from inactivity, to give new life to our democracy. We stared into the abyss, tottered on the edge, and a record-setting surge of voting and activism delivered us from the very real threat of plunging into autocracy."

Christopher Buckley at his best: an extraordinary, wide-ranging selection of essays both hilarious and poignant, irreverent and delightful.

In his first book of essays since his 1997 bestseller, "Wry Martinis," Buckley delivers a rare combination of big ideas and truly fun writing. Tackling subjects ranging from How to Teach Your Four-Year-Old to Ski to A Short History of the Bug Zapper, and The Art of Sacking to literary friendships with Joseph Heller and Christopher Hitchens, he is at once a humorous storyteller, astute cultural critic, adventurous traveler, and irreverent historian.
Reading these essays is the equivalent of being in the company of a tremendously witty and enlightening companion. Praised as both deeply informed and deeply funny by "The Wall Street Journal," Buckley will have you laughing and reflecting in equal measure.

In 1980, Buckley gathered together his friends and set out to sail across the Atlantic. This is what he correctly describes as a "celebration" of that thirty-day event. Here are the calms and the storms, the melodrama and the rumination, the wine and the song, the navigation and the introspection that in Buckley's distinctive blend capture the imagination of sailors and non-sailors, amuse the lighthearted and the dour, and engross the reader who wishes he were aboard, as also the reader who thanks heaven that he is not.

Racing Through Paradise is the third entry in Bill Buckley's now classic sailing trilogy. Here the irresponsible, eloquent, enjoyable Buckley guides us through his beloved Azores, and through the Galapagos ("the Bronx Zoo at the Equator"), about which he inclines more to Melville's view than to Darwin's, and through places such as Johnston Atoll, where mysteries and hostilities await. On a hilarious side adventure, we have a memorable encounter with "The Angel of Craig's Point." Along the way, Buckley navigates among pleasant diversions as well as unforeseen navigational and philosophical shoals. He adroitly excerpts the candid journals of his shipmates, notably that of his son, Christopher, himself a best-selling novelist. The fine photographs by Christopher Little illustrate throughout. When Buckley's Sealestial sails, finally, into New Guinea, we have shared a unique experience with a special breed of sailor, skipper, host, friend, and human being.

Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the funniest--and most celebrated--books of all time. In recent years it has been named to "best novels" lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.
Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy--it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.
This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller's personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

Fifty years after its original publication, "Catch-22 "remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the funniest--and most celebrated--books of all time. In recent years it has been named to "best novels" lists by "Time, Newsweek, "the Modern Library, and the London "Observer."

Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy--it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller's personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

Fifty years after its original publication, "Catch-22 "remains a cornerstone of American lit-erature and one of the funniest--and most celebrated--novels of all time. In recent years it has been named to "best novels" lists by "Time, Newsweek, "the Modern Library, and the London "Observer." Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy--it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved. Since its publication in 1961, no novel has matched "Catch-22"'s intensity and brilliance in depicting the brutal insanity of war. This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical responses and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller's personal archive; and a selection of advertisements from the original publishing campaign that helped turn "Catch-22 "into a cultural phenomenon. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

"Moby-Dick" is at once a thrilling adventure tale, a timeless allegory, and an epic saga of heroic determination and conflict. At its heart is the powerful, unknowable sea--and Captain Ahab, a brooding, one-legged fanatic who has sworn vengeance on the mammoth white whale that crippled him. Narrated by Ishmael, a wayfarer who joins the crew of Ahab's whaling ship, this is the story of that hair-raising voyage, and of the men who embraced hardship and nameless horrors as they dared to challenge God's most dreaded creation and death itself for a chance at immortality.
A novel that delves with astonishing vigor into the complex souls of men, "Moby-Dick" is an impassioned drama of the ultimate human struggle that the "Atlantic Monthly "called "the greatest of American novels."

With an Introduction by Elizabeth Renker and a New Afterword

One hundred of Ray Bradbury's remarkable stories which have, together with his classic novels," "earned him an immense international audience and his place among the most imaginative and enduring writers of our time.
Here are the Martian stories, tales that vividly animate the red planet, with its brittle cities and double-mooned sky. Here are the stories that speak of a special nostalgia for Green Town, Illinois, the perfect setting for a seemingly cloudless childhood--except for the unknown terror lurking in the ravine. Here are the Irish stories and the Mexican stories, linked across their separate geographies by Bradbury's astonishing inventiveness. Here, too, are thrilling, terrifying stories--including "The Veldt" and "The Fog Horn"--perfect for reading under the covers.
Read for the first time, these stories become as unshakable as one's own fantasies. Read again--and again--they reveal new, dazzling facets of the extraordinary art of Ray Bradbury.

The bestselling author who made mincemeat of political correctness in "Thank You for Smoking," conspiracy theories in "Little Green Men," and Presidential indiscretions "No Way to Treat a First Lady" now takes on the hottest topic in the entire world-Arab-American relations-in a blistering comic novel sure to offend the few it doesn't delight.
Appalled by the punishment of her rebellious friend Nazrah, youngest and most petulant wife of Prince Bawad of Wasabia, Florence Farfarletti decides to draw a line in the sand. As Deputy to the deputy assistant secretary for Near East Affairs, Florence invents a far-reaching, wide-ranging plan for female emancipation in that part of the world.
The U.S. government, of course, tells her to forget it. Publicly, that is. Privately, she's enlisted in a top-secret mission to impose equal rights for the sexes on the small emirate of Matar (pronounced "Mutter"), the "Switzerland of the Persian Gulf." Her crack team: a CIA killer, a snappy PR man, and a brilliant but frustrated gay bureaucrat. Her weapon: TV shows.
The lineup on TV Matar includes "A Thousand and One Mornings, " a daytime talk show that features self-defense tips to be used against boyfriends during Ramadan; an addictive soap opera featuring strangely familiar members of the Matar royal family; and a sitcom about an inept but ruthless squad of religious police, pitched as ""Friends" from Hell."
The result: the first deadly car bombs in the country since 1936, a fatwa against the station's entire staff, a struggle for control of the kingdom, and, of course, interference from the French. And that's only the beginning.
A merciless dismantling of both American ineptitude and Arabic intolerance, "Florence of Arabia" is Christopher Buckley's funniest and most serious novel yet, a biting satire of how U.S. good intentions can cause the Shiite to hit the fan.

"From the Hardcover edition."

In an attempt to gain congressional approval for a top-secret weapons system, Washington lobbyist "Bird" McIntyre teams up with sexy, outspoken neocon Angel Templeton to pit the American public against the Chinese. When Bird fails to uncover an authentic reason to slander the nation, he and Angel put the Washington media machine to work, spreading a rumor that the Chinese secret service is working to assassinate the Dalai Lama.
Meanwhile in China, mild-mannered President Fa Mengyao and his devoted aide Gang are maneuvering desperately against sinister party hard-liners Minister Lo and General Han. Now Fa and Gang must convince the world that the People's Republic is not out to kill the Dalai Lama, while maintaining Fa's small margin of power in the increasingly militaristic environment of the party.
On the home front, Bird must contend with a high-strung wife who entertains Olympic equestrian ambition, and the qualifying competition happens to be taking place in China. As things unravel abroad, Bird and Angel's lie comes dangerously close to reality. And as their relationship rises to a new level, so do mounting tensions between the United States and China.

Christopher Buckley investigates the large, unanswerable questions that have dogged humanity since the Beginning. Often the seascapes along the California coast toss their debris of ontological doubts upon the shores of his writing . . . uncertainties concerning God, the human condition, the limits of our knowing, and the universe.Buckley's poetry provides readers with the constant blending of beautiful language and stirring content. Full of emotion, "Varieties of Religious Experience" promises to deliver meaningful messages.

An extraordinary and sweeping memoir of one of the most revered families in America -- the Buckleys

The Buckley name is synonymous with a unique brand of conservatism -- marked by merciless reasoning, wit, good humor, and strong will. Self-made oil tycoon William F. Buckley, Sr., of Texas, and his Southern belle wife, Aloise Steiner Buckley, of New Orleans, raised a family of ten whose ideals would go on to shape the traditionalist revival in American culture.

But their family history is anything but conventional. Begun in Mexico (until their father was expelled) and set against a diverse inter-national background (the children's first languages were Spanish and French) with colorful guest stars (such as Pancho Villa, and Norman Mailer), theirs was a life built on self-reliance, hard work, belief in God, and respect for all. It is no wonder the family produced nationally recognizable figures such as columnist and commentator William, Jr., "New York Times" bestselling satirist Christopher, and New York senator James.

With charm and candor, youngest son Reid, himself the founder of the Buckley School of Public Speaking in South Carolina, tells the enormously engaging and entertaining -- sometimes outrageous -- story of a family that became the mainstay of right-wing belief in our politics and culture. "An American Family" is an epic memoir that at once will appeal to conservatives, liberals, and moderates alike.

In twelve months between 2007 and 2008, Christopher Buckley coped with the passing of his father, William F. Buckley, the father of the modern conservative movement, and his mother, Patricia Taylor Buckley, one of New York's most glamorous and colorful socialites. He was their only child and their relationship was close and complicated. Writes Buckley: "They were not - with respect to every other set of loving, wonderful parents in the world - your typical mom and dad."
As Buckley tells the story of their final year together, he takes readers on a surprisingly entertaining tour through hospitals, funeral homes, and memorial services, capturing the heartbreaking and disorienting feeling of becoming a 55-year-old orphan. Buckley maintains his sense of humor by recalling the words of Oscar Wilde: "To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."
Just as Calvin Trillin and Joan Didion gave readers solace and insight into the experience of losing a spouse, Christopher Buckley offers consolation, wit, and warmth to those coping with the death of a parent, while telling a unique personal story of life with legends.