Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This?"
Dec 2007 · Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
3.9star
7 reviews
Ebook
272
Pages
family_home
Eligible
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About this ebook
A “hair-raisingly hilarious” journey through danger zones from Belfast to Gaza, by the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Vanity Fair).
“Tired of making bad jokes” and believing that “the world outside seemed a much worse joke than anything I could conjure,” journalist and political satirist P. J. O’Rourke decided to traverse 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 is Holidays in Hell—a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology. The author’s adventures include storming student protesters’ barricades with riot police in South Korea, interviewing communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover dressed in Arab garb in the Gaza Strip. He also takes a look at America’s homegrown horrors as he braves the media frenzy surrounding the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington DC, uncovers the mortifying banality behind the white-bread kitsch of Jerry Falwell’s Heritage USA, and survives the stultifying boredom of Harvard’s 350th anniversary celebration.
Packed with classic riffs on everything from Polish nightlife under communism to Third World driving tips, Holidays in Hell is one of the best-loved books by “one of America’s most hilarious writers” (Time).
“Wickedly amusing.” —The Baltimore Sun
“Funny, outrageous, perceptive.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Tired of making bad jokes” and believing that “the world outside seemed a much worse joke than anything I could conjure,” journalist and political satirist P. J. O’Rourke decided to traverse 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 is Holidays in Hell—a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology. The author’s adventures include storming student protesters’ barricades with riot police in South Korea, interviewing communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover dressed in Arab garb in the Gaza Strip. He also takes a look at America’s homegrown horrors as he braves the media frenzy surrounding the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington DC, uncovers the mortifying banality behind the white-bread kitsch of Jerry Falwell’s Heritage USA, and survives the stultifying boredom of Harvard’s 350th anniversary celebration.
Packed with classic riffs on everything from Polish nightlife under communism to Third World driving tips, Holidays in Hell is one of the best-loved books by “one of America’s most hilarious writers” (Time).
“Wickedly amusing.” —The Baltimore Sun
“Funny, outrageous, perceptive.” —The Washington Post Book World
Ratings and reviews
3.9
7 reviews
About the author
P. J. O’Rourke has written nineteen books, including Modern Manners, Parliament of Whores, and All the Trouble in the World. He has written for such publications as Car and Driver, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Parade, Harper’s Magazine, and Rolling Stone. He is currently editor-in-chief of American Consequences.
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