P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022)
Teoksen Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government tekijä
Tietoja tekijästä
P. J. O'Rourke was born in Toledo, Ohio on November 14, 1947. He received a B. A. from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a M.A. in English from Johns Hopkins University. He worked for the magazine National Lampoon, eventually becoming editor-in-chief. He received a writing credit for National näytä lisää Lampoon's Lemmings which helped launch the careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase. In 1981, he left the magazine to write screenplays including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money. He contributes regularly to several magazines including Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The American Spectator, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Weekly Standard, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of 20 books including Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, All the Troubles in the World, Don't Vote! - It Just Encourages the Bastards, and How It Got That Way (And It Wasn't My Fault) (And I'll Never Do It Again). (Bowker Author Biography) näytä vähemmän
Image credit: P.J. O'Rourke [credit: Cato Institute]
Tekijän teokset
Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government (1991) 1,568 kappaletta, 21 arvostelua
Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut: Twenty-Five Years of P. J. O'Rourke (1995) 764 kappaletta, 6 arvostelua
The Bachelor Home Companion : A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig (1987) 408 kappaletta, 4 arvostelua
Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed to Be—With an… (2009) 220 kappaletta, 7 arvostelua
American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare (1996) 144 kappaletta, 3 arvostelua
The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again) (2014) 110 kappaletta, 7 arvostelua
National Lampoon Tenth Anniversary Anthology 1970–1980: Volume II (1984) — Toimittaja — 11 kappaletta
The Funny Stuff: The Official P. J. O’Rourke Quotationary and Riffapedia (2022) 9 kappaletta, 3 arvostelua
The New Enemies List 1 kappale
Eat the Rich 1 kappale
The Bachelor Home Companion: A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig (O'Rourke, P. J.) 1 kappale
Eight little civics lessons 1 kappale
Best of the National Lampoon #7 1 kappale
Associated Works
For the Love of Books: 115 Celebrated Writers on the Books They Love Most (1999) — Avustaja — 458 kappaletta, 3 arvostelua
There's No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (1998) — Avustaja — 212 kappaletta, 5 arvostelua
Writers on Writing, 2: More Collected Essays from the New York Times (2003) — Avustaja — 188 kappaletta, 3 arvostelua
Backward Ran Sentences: The Best of Wolcott Gibbs from the New Yorker (2011) — Esipuhe — 80 kappaletta, 12 arvostelua
National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook: 39th Reunion Edition (2003) — Avustaja — 76 kappaletta, 1 arvostelu
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! The Oddly Informative News Quiz (2002) — Avustaja — 74 kappaletta, 2 arvostelua
Very seventies : a cultural history of the 1970s, from the pages of Crawdaddy (1995) — Avustaja — 24 kappaletta
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Kanoninen nimi
- O'Rourke, P. J.
- Virallinen nimi
- O'Rourke, Patrick Jake
- Syntymäaika
- 1947-11-14
- Kuolinaika
- 2022-02-15
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Kansalaisuus
- USA
- Syntymäpaikka
- Toledo, Ohio, USA
- Kuolinpaikka
- Sharon, New Hampshire, USA
- Kuolinsyy
- cancer (lung, complications)
- Asuinpaikat
- Sharon, New Hampshire, USA
Washington, D.C., USA - Koulutus
- Miami University (B.A.|1969)
Johns Hopkins University (MA ∙ 1970) - Ammatit
- editor
journalist - Suhteet
- O'Rourke, Tina (wife)
- Organisaatiot
- National Lampoon
Rolling Stone
Cato Institute
The Atlantic Monthly
The Weekly Standard
The Daily Beast
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
The material is great, but huge swaths of the 2005 paperback reprint have been completely re-typeset and just look wrong.
The author has studied Adam Smith's seminal work of the 18th century (1776), and interpreted it in modern terms so that the rest of us are spared that ordeal. The result is a light, quirky, humorous account of the main strands of the treatrise, which as is well known, rests on two principles, the division of labor and specialisation, and the 'hidden hand' of free market exchanges to maximise satisfaction.
Listat
Palkinnot
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 48
- Also by
- 21
- Jäseniä
- 11,482
- Suosituimmuussija
- #2,043
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 3.6
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 173
- ISBN:t
- 300
- Kielet
- 10
- Kuinka monen suosikki
- 43
When I read that, I agreed with it, for I have read a number of O'Rourke books and laughed my way through each of them. Yet after finishing this book, I found that I disagreed. So what went wrong?
The main problem, I think, is that O'Rourke's lines are funnier in context than standing alone. There are exceptions, of course:
"There is only one hard-and-fast rule about the place to have a party: someone else's place."
"If you run more than twenty miles a week, try not to die young, It will make people snigger."
"El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus — and this was a relief — no Californians."
"Freedom of speech is important — if you have anything to say. I've checked the Internet; nobody does."
Yet so many of the lines quoted were, I'm sure, much more amusing in the context of the book or article in which they are found. They are like the punch lines without the jokes.
And many of the excerpts collected by Terry McDonell, the editor, are not really funny at all, but just good examples of clever writing, even witty writing, but not knee-slapping stuff. Here is a sample about Tanzania" "Probably every child whose parents weren't rich enough has been told, 'We're rich in other ways.' Tanzania is fabulously rich in other ways." That's a great line, but I wouldn't call it funny.
I enjoyed “The Funny Stuff” very much, but I think I would have called it “The Good Stuff.”… (lisätietoja)