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 75th 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 introduction When 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.

'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 introduction When 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 Terry McDonell, The Funny Stuff is arranged in six sections, organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to Xenophobia. 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 S. 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.

A satirical guide to how to behave in today's complex world of shifting values and social uncertainties, by the author of Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays (and Other) Outrages of P.J.O'Rourke.

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. Highly pungent and wickedly accurate observations ... [from a] boisterous, pedal-to-the-floor humorist. -- The New York Times Book Review Outrageous ... It is insulting, inflammatory, profane, and absolutely great reading. -- The Washington Post Book World A gonzo civics book ... O'Rourke is like a trophy hunter let loose in an unguarded zoo. -- Chicago Tribune

A hilarious look at the aging baby boomer generation from the author the Spectator labelled 'what happens when America does Grumpy Old Men'. The Baby Boom - over-sized, overwrought, overbearing, and all over the place, from Donovan to Obama. The generation that said with a straight face, 'We are the world.' What's so funny about peace, love and understanding? Ask the generation responsible for the fall of the Berlin Wall and their knickers. Who put their faith in the Kyoto Accord and disco. Who dropped out of the capitalist system and popped back again in time to cause a global financial crisis. How did the Baby Boom become what it is and who let them get away with it?

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 through your tears or--what the hell--just laugh.

P.J. O'Rourke says we've worked ourselves into a state of anger and perplexity, and it's no surprise because perplexed and angry is what America has always been all about. This uproarious look at the current state of the United States includes essays like 'The New Puritanism - and Welcome to It,' about the upside of being 'woke' (and unable to get back to sleep); 'Sympathy vs. Empathy,' which considers whether it's better to have an idea of how people feel or to bust their skulls to get inside their heads; 'A Brief Digression on the Additional Hell of the Internet of Things' because your juicer is sending fake news to your FitBit about what's in your refrigerator; and many more. A couple of extra perks include a quiz to determine where you stand on the spectrum of 'Coastals vs. Heartlanders' and a 'An Inauguration Speech I'd Like To Hear:' ask not what your country can do for you. Ask me how I can get the hell out of here. Featuring extensive coverage from the 2020 campaign trail, this is P.J. at his acerbic best.

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 question: "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 unthinkable: 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

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 pokes fun at bitcoin, and closes with a fanciful short story about the morning that he 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.

With new, updated material, P. J. O'Rourke covers the whole election process from the pig pile of presidential candidates circa June 2015, through his come-to-Satan moment with Hillary and the Beginning of End Times in November 2016, to the current shape of US politics. How the Hell Did This Happen? answers the key question of the 2016 presidential election: Should we laugh or should we cry or should we hurl? (They are not mutually exclusive.)

'Whether you agree with him or not, P.J. writes a helluva piece.' Richard Nixon P.J. O'Rourke has had a prolific career as one of America's most celebrated humourists. But that career almost didn't happen. As he tells it, 'I began to write for pay in the spring of 1970. To tell the truth I didn't even mean to be a writer, I meant to be a race car driver, but I didn't have a race car.' Fortunately for us, he had to settle for writing. From his early pieces for the National Lampoon ('How to Drive fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink'), through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone's International Affairs editor in the 80s and 90s ('Among the Euroweenies'), and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis (Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, Eat the Rich), P.J. has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane prose, a gonzo Republican attitude and a rare ability to make you laugh out loud while silently reading to yourself. For the first time Thrown Under the Omnibus brings together his funniest, most outrageous, most controversial and most loved pieces in the definitive P.J. reader.

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.

A New York Times Bestseller As P. J. O'Rourke says, 'It's as if Smith, having proved that we can all have more money, then went on to prove that money doesn't buy happiness. And it doesn't. It rents it.' Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was first published in 1776 and almost instantly was recognized as fundamental to an understanding of economics. It was also recognized as being really long and as P. J. O'Rourke points out, to understand The Wealth of Nations, the cornerstone of free-market thinking and a book that shapes the world to this day, you also need to peruse Smith's earlier doorstopper, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But now you don't have to read either, because P. J. has done it for you. In this hilarious work P. J. shows us why Smith is still relevant, why what seems obvious now was once revolutionary, and how the division of labour, freedom of trade and pursuit of self-interest espoused by Smith are not only vital to the welfare of mankind, they're funny too. He goes on to establish that far from being an avatar of capitalism, Smith was actually a moralist of liberty.

Told with Clive James's unassailable sense of humour and self-effacing charm, Unreliable Memoirs is a hilarious and touching introduction to the story of a national treasure. A million-copy bestseller, this classic memoir is a celebration of life in all its unpredictable glory. With an introduction by political satirist and journalist P. J. O'Rourke. I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment that did not affect me. In the first instalment of James's memoirs we follow the young Clive on his journey from boyhood to the cusp of manhood, when his days of wearing short trousers are finally behind him. Battling with school, girls, various relatives and an overwhelming desire to be a superhero, Clive's adventures growing up in the suburbs of post-war Sydney are hair-raising, uproarious and almost too good to be true . . . 'Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter.' - Sunday Times.

The story behind the contrast and their relationship with their CIA sponsors is one of courage, villainy, political intrigue, and general craziness.

Holidays in Hell follows P. J. O'Rourke on a global fun-finding mission to the most desperate places on the planet, from the bombed-out streets of Beirut to the stultifying blandness of Heritage USA. P.J.'s unforgettable adventures abroad include storming student protesters' barricades in South Korea, interviewing Communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover in Arab garb at Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock Mosque. 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 - a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology. Taking a long look at Nicaragua, P.J. asks, "Is Nicaragua a Bulgaria with marimba bands or just a misunderstood Massachusetts with Cuban military advisors?"; has a close encounter with a Philippine army officer he describes as "powerful-looking in a short, compressed way, like an attack hamster"; and concludes, "Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun."

Driving Like Crazy celebrates cars and author P. J. O'Rourke's love for them, while chronicling the golden age of the automobile in America. O'Rourke takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world's most scenic and bumpiest roads in trouble-laden cross-country treks, from a 1978 Florida-to-California escapade in a 1956 special four-door Buick sedan to a 1983 thousand-mile effort across Mexico in the Baja 1000 to a trek through Kyrgyzstan in 2006 on the back of a Soviet army surplus six-wheel-drive truck. For longtime fans of the celebrated humorist, the collection features a host of O'Rourke's classic pieces on driving, including "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink," about the potential misdeeds one might perform in the front (and back) seat of an automobile; "The Rolling Organ Donors Motorcycle Club," which chronicles a seven-hundred-mile weekend trip through Michigan and Indiana that O'Rourke took on a Harley Davidson alongside Car & Driver publisher David E. Davis, Jr.; his brilliant and funny piece from Rolling Stone on NASCAR and its peculiar culture, recorded during an alcohol-fueled weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1977; and an hilarious account of a trek from Islamabad to Calcutta in Land Rover's new Discovery Trek.

Holidays in Heck takes the reader on a globe-trotting journey to far-reaching places including China, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and the Galapagos Islands. The collection begins after the Iraq War, when P.J. retired from being a war correspondent because he was "too old to keep being scared stiff and too stiff to keep sleeping on the ground." Instead he embarked on supposedly more comfortable and allegedly less dangerous travels - often with family in tow - which mostly left him wishing he were under artillery fire again. The result is a hilarious and oftentimes moving portrait of life in the fast lane - only this time as a husband and father of three. Adventures include: - The first stag hunt in Britain after hunting had been banned. If the British had been half as caring about Indians and American colonists as they are about animals, they'd still rule the world. - A month-long tour of mainland China's economic hubs where P.J. learned that the entire Chinese concept of political freedom and individual liberty can be summed up in the words, 'New Buick'. - A harrowing horseback ride across the mountains of Kyrgyzstan - no towns, no roads, no people. "If something happened to my horse it would be shot. For me, the medical treatment wouldn't be that sophisticated."