P. J. O’Rourke Books

An analysis of the present political moment, and the anger that defines it, from bestselling author and acclaimed satirist P.J. O'Rourke.

A collection of O'Rourke's writings about cars for Car and Driver, Automobile, Esquire, Forbes, and other publications.

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.

In Holidays in Hell America's funniest writer takes on the role of tour guide with hilarious results. In this darkly satirical take on the travel writing genre, O'Rourke reports from trouble spots around the world; 'A Ramble through Lebanon' and 'Christmas in El Salvador' may sound unpromising, but when subjected to O'Rourke's blackly comic treatment they become gloriously entertaining inversions of the standard travelogue. The perfect antidote to political correctness, Holidays in Hell is also a clear-eyed look at humanity, or man's lack of it, around the world.

Examines aspects of government, attending a political convention, the presidential election and inauguration, Congress, the Supreme Court and a town meeting in New Hampshire. He examines the budget, the bureaucracy and the US policies on drugs, poverty, agriculture, defence and foreign affairs.

Now available in paperback, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, the book that created the field of economics, is transformed into a page-turner of global significance by America's sharpest political commentator writing in English today.

From the author of Give War a Chance and Parliament of Whores, this book offers P.J. O'Rourke's view of all the trouble in the world - but with the goal of answering some tough questions.

Looks at freedom in Russia, Berlin, and Nicaragua, the Gulf War, Africa, drug testing, and pokes fun at people such as Dr. Ruth and Lee Iacocca

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.

With his typical wit and keen analysis, O'Rourke looks at the way the post-war generation somehow came of age by never quite growing up and somehow created a better society by turning society upside down.