O'Rourke, P. J. Series

This book looks at cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping for people who don't know how to do any of those things and aren't about to learn. There are useful sections on cleaning - describing how to avoid cleaning, how to trick other people into cleaning for you and cooking, entertaining, home decorating, yard care, and miscellancous hints and tips.

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

by P J O'Rourke

Published 30 August 1995

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

Modern Manners

by P J O'Rourke

Published 1 October 1983

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.

The C.E.O. of the Sofa

by P J O'Rourke

Published 15 September 2001

This work follows P.J. through a year of his life as he describes his fraught relationships with his wife, his assistant Max, his daughter, his editor, his teenage godson and the dreaded "Political Nut Who Lives Around Here". P.J. also takes on the state of the Third World, the 2000 election debacle, the Clinton scandals, political correctness, the dot-com bubble and everything else a polite family doesn't talk about in the living room - including sex, politics, money, and religion.

Parliament of Whores

by P J O'Rourke

Published 6 September 1991

In 1988, P.J. O'Rourke moved to Washington to examine the US government and to look at what politicians do and why it costs so much. The author argues that governments make everything complicated, obscure and tedious to confuse members of the general public in what he describes as a "dictatorship of boredom". In this book he examines and explains many of the aspects of the workings of the American government. P.J. O'Rourke is the author of "Modern Manners", "The Bachelor Home Companion", "Republican Party Reptile" and "Holidays in Hell".

The Enemies List

by P J O'Rourke

Published 25 April 1996

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