The Funny Stuff

A compendium of quotes and riffs by P.J. O'Rourke on subjects ranging from government to fishing to apps, to be published on what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. 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 twenty-eight years. Now, for the first time, the best material is collected in one volume. Edited by 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 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 audiences and stand as testament to one of the truly original American writers of the last fifty years.