P. J O'Rourke

In On The Wealth of Nations, America's most provocative satirist, P. J. O'Rourke, reads Adam Smith's revolutionary The Wealth of Nations so you don't have to. Recognized almost instantly on its publication in 1776 as the fundamental work of economics, The Wealth of Nations was also recognized as really long: the original edition totaled over nine hundred pages in two volumes-including the blockbuster sixty-seven-page "digression concerning the variations...

From angry chiggers in the jungles of Peru to irate coeds in Ohio, O'Rourke takes on the "fashionable worries" of the day.

"When The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations was published in 1987, P. J. O'Rourke had more entries than any living writer. And he kept writing funny stuff for another thirty-five years. Now, for the first time, P.J.'s best quips and riffs have been collected in one volume, edited by his longtime friend and award-winning magazine editor Terry McDonell. The Funny Stuff is organized by subject in alphabetical order from Agriculture to...

America's most subversive conservative, O'Rourke describes government as a devil's bargain between power, freedom, and responsibility, and goes on to hilariously skewer the politicians who have bargained with us to consolidate power, and the many mini-bargains and evasions that citizens have made with the consequences of their choice.

To unravel the mysteries of war, P.J. O'Rourke first visits Kosovo. ("Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months later and bomb the country next to where it's happening.") He travels to Israel at the outbreak of the intifada. He flies to Egypt in the wake of the 9/11 terrorists' attacks. And contemplates bygone lunacies. ("Why are the people in the Middle East so crazy? Here, at the pyramids, was an answer...

A follow-up to "Holidays in hell" collects classic travel pieces written throughout the author's post-retirement years, a period marked by his haphazard journeys with and without family to such regions as China, Kyrgyzstan, and America.

In the tradition of his contemporary classic Parliament of Whores, P.J. O'Rourke is back with Eat the Rich, in which he takes on the global economy. P.J. leads you 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,...

Now available from Grove Press, P. J. O'Rourke's classic, bestselling guided tour of the world's most desolate, dangerous, and desperate places. "Tired of making bad jokes" and believing that "the world outside seemed a much worse joke than anything I could conjure," P. J. O'Rourke traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission, investigating the way of life in the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast. The result...

In a time of chaos, the #1 New York Times bestselling political humorist asks his fellow Americans to take it down a notch. Is there an upside to being woke (and unable to get back to sleep)? If we license dentists, why don't we license politicians? Is your juicer sending fake news to your FitBit about what's in your refrigerator? The legendary P. J. O'Rourke addresses these questions and more in this hilarious new collection of essays about our...

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...