Political Books - Page 2

Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)

Dave Barry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

208 chuckles 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Funny and original on every page. Dave Barry is one of a very few comedy writers who can jab at both sides of the political aisle without malice and keep everyone laughing. This is the perfect book to take to the DMV, dentist or airport. Any place you need a quick laugh or a lighter perspective.

Editorial Review:

A brilliantly funny look at the tumultuous recent past from the Pulitzer Prize–winning humorist.

Remember when everything was going to go to hell when Y2K struck?

That didn’t happen. Right?

But what did happen? To provide a little perspective on a really messed-up millennium (so far), the one and only Dave Barry slips into his historian’s robe (it’s plush terrycloth) and revisits the defining moments in our country’s recent history—from the Bush years to…jeez, it’s still the Bush years! As an added bonus, Barry quickly—we’re busy here—tosses in the complete history of the last millennium, covering crucial turning points such as the invention of the pizza by Leonardo da Vinci and the computer by Charles Babbage (who died in 1871 still waiting to talk to tech support).

Fellow Americans, the time has come to bone up with Barry as he puts the hysterical in history.

How to Ruin the United States of America

Ben Stein, Phil DeMuth

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On the heels of his very successful books, How to Ruin Your Life, How to Ruin Your Love Life, and How to Ruin Your Financial Life, Ben Stein, in collaboration with his pal Phil DeMuth, has tongue firmly in cheek once again as he comes up with surefire ways to ruin the greatest nation in the history of the human race.

Try a few of these on for size:

·       Trust the United Nations to protect us and our security.

·       Make it unlawful to worship God or even to show images of the Ten Commandments.

·       Convert our universities into fortresses of anti-Americanism, hatred of freedom, and centers of confusion and ignorance.

·       Encourage contempt for the family and for the community.

·       Allow Hollywood to brainwash us into believing that only suckers and criminals fight for their country.

·       Treat the military, the police, firefighters, and teachers as losers and pay them starvation wages.

Hey, does any of this sound familiar? Maybe that’s because it’s already happening! Ben and Phil give you all the information you’ll ever need in order to successfully ruin the USA even further! Sardonic, humorous, but also angrily emphatic, this is a book every old-fashioned patriot really needs to read!

Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme

Calvin Trillin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Displaying the form that made bestsellers of Obliviously On He Sails and A Heckuva Job, tales of the Bush Administration in rhyme, Calvin Trillin trains his verse on the 2008 race for the presidency.

Deciding the Next Decider is an ongoing campaign narrative in verse interrupted regularly by other poems, such as a country tune about John Edwards called “Yes, I Know He’s a Mill Worker’s Son, But There’s Hollywood in That Hair” and a Sarah Palin song about her foreign policy credentials: “On a Clear Day, I See Vladivostok.” It covers Mitt Romney’s transformation (“Mitt Romney’s saying now he should have known / A stem cell’s just a human, not quite grown”), the speculation about whether Al Gore was trimming down to run (“Presumably, they looked for photo ops / To see what Gore was stuffing in his chops”), the slow-motion implosion of Hillary Clinton’s drive to the White House (“Some pundits wrote that Hil’s campaign might fare / A little better if Bill wasn’t there”), and the differing responses of Barack Obama and John McCain to the financial crisis (“Though coolness has its limitations, it’ll / Prevent comparisons with Chicken Little”).

Beginning at the 2006 midterms, Deciding the Next Decider resurrects the nonstarters like George Allen (“He fit what’s often valued by the Right: / Quite cheerful, Reaganesque, and not too bright”) and the low-energy Fred Thompson (“The pros said, ‘That’s a state he has to take, / And he just might, if he can stay awake’ ”). And it carries through to the vote that made Barack Obama the forty-fourth president of the United States.

The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> U.K. Prime Ministers -> Churchill, Winston

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

I just like old Winston! 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

You do have to think about many of his quips, most are very funny in a dry, perhaps a bit cynical manner. It is sometimes difficult to place his statements in the context of WW-II (I was born in 1944 and I do have a memory of that era because it was the biggest event in my parents lives - they talked about it all the time).

After a session with Mr. Churchill, I often wish American politicians had a bit of his prespective (though I reall doubt they would ever get elected).

Editorial Review:

Churchill took his seat in Parliament in the reign of Queen Victoria, and died when Lyndon Johnson was in his second year as US President. He fought as a solider in four campaigns and as a war correspondent made an epic escape from Boer captivity. He wrote histories, biographies, memoirs, and even a novel, while his journalism, speeches and broadcasts run to millions of words. From 1940 he inspired and united the British people and guided their war effort. Sir Winston Churchill was also a man of vast humanity and enormous wit. His most famous speeches and sayings have passed into history, but many of his aphorisms, puns and jokes are less well known. This enchanting collection brings together hundreds of his wittiest and wickedest quips in a tribute to this lovable, infuriatingly conceited, wildly funny, and brilliantly talented Englishman.

The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, Bad, and Completely Ridiculous in American Life

Bill O'Reilly

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 384 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

An irreverent, straight-talking look at American politics and culture from the iconoclastic anchor of one of the highest-rated TV news programs in the country.

Bill O'Reilly has the hottest cable news program on the air. "The O'Reilly Factor," seen nightly on the Fox News Channel, boosted its ratings by more than six times in 1998, and has kept soaring. His blunt, ironic, no-holds-barred style has earned O'Reilly a devoted audience of viewers--friends and foes alike--who send him five thousand letters every week. Now, with the wit and intelligence that have made him one of the most talked-about stars in television, Bill O'Reilly identifies what's right, what's wrong, and what's absurd in the political, social, economic, and cultural life of America:

*The media: why what you see is decided upon by morons

*Politics: why most politicians are obsolete

*Sex: why Americans would declare war on Denmark if they knew what was going on there

As the nation prepares for another presidential race, O'Reilly's provocative opinions are sure to add fire to the ongoing debates. THE O'REILLY FACTOR is poised to follow in the footsteps of bestsellers such as Rush Limbaugh's The Way Things Ought to Be and Jesse Ventura'sI Ain't Got Time to Bleed.

A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 190 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A Man Without a Country is Kurt Vonnegut's hilarious and razor-sharp look at life ("If I die-God forbid-I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?'"), art ("To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it."), politics ("I asked former Yankees pitcher Jim Bouton what he thought of our great victory over Iraq and he said, Mohammed Ali versus Mr. Rogers.'"), and the condition of the soul of America today ("What has happened to us?"). Gleaned from short essays and speeches composed over the last five years and plentifully illustrated with artwork by the author throughout, A Man Without a Country gives us Vonnegut both speaking out with indignation and writing tenderly to his fellow Americans, sometimes joking, at other times hopeless, always searching.

Kurt Vonnegut is among the very few grandmasters of contemporary American letters, without whom the very term "American literature" would mean less than it does. His novels include Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five, among so many others. Projects with Seven Stories Press in recent years include God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and, with Lee Stringer, Like Shaking Hands with God, a book about writing. His most recent novel is Timequake (1997). In addition to his writing, Vonnegut is a visual artist of note. His paintings and prints can be seen at www.vonnegut.com. He lives with his wife, photographer Jill Krementz, in New York City.

Daniel Simon is the founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press and served as editor on two previous books by Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and, with Lee Stringer, Like Shaking Hands God. Simon is also co-author of a biography of Abbie Hoffman, Run, Run, Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman.

The Onion Presents: News Surge 2009 Daily Calendar (Complete News Archives)

Editors of the Onion

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I'll Be Sober in the Morning

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Really Fun Book 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Loved this little book - it reads quickly, and is a great compendium of comebacks and putdowns by the rich and famous. Good stocking stuffer for pursuers of political trivia, opponents of the politically correct, and for those like me who always say "I wish I'd said that!". I only wish it had been longer.

Come back with more comebacks 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

OK, I liked it (to a point). Some great put downs and come backs but I felt many were too familiar and there should have been more. I felt the book was over-priced for something which took less time to read than most magazines. I heard an interview on NPR (National Public Radio) of one of the authors and was left with the impression that the book would deliver more (hence I bought it) and was disappointed.

Way too short 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very fun book to have but way, way, way too short. Bad, bad, bad $ value!

I'll Still Be Laughing in the Morning 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Political humor is a fertile field for harvesting, and Chris Lamb has combined and baled for us a delightful crop of egotism, argumentation, acerbic wit, and outright insults from political greats from both Europe and the US during the last two to three centuries.

I read it in one sitting and howled. It is now ensconced in my guest bathroom where several other people have also read it in one sitting. In this year rife with snipes and snippets in the American political scene, it's great fun to enjoy the rivalries and repartee of historical politicians of note. When are you going to compile another, contemporary volume, Mr. Lamb? I hope other readers enjoy your book as much as I have.

Editorial Review:

A collection political, comebacks, putdowns, and ripostes over the last 2500 years, with 12 humorous illustrations by Steve Steglin.

Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America's Finest News Source

Onion Editors

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perefect Gift for Intelligent Friends of Any Political POV! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

God bless the Onion! Nothing and no one is sacred or left unscathed. I have given this to firends who are communists, democrats, republicans, evangelicals, etc. Anyone with a sense of humor and some knowledge of history will love this!

Hard to read, Not really what I was expecting. 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 7 people found this review helpful.

While the actual text might be full of humor the book is set up as old style newsprint which makes it not a lot of fun to read. I had bought 'Our Dumb World' and loved it, but I'm not so in love with how this book was put together.

Editorial Review:

After more than three centuries in print, The Onion remains the world’s most popular news source, making sense of the world for more than four million readers a week. Our Dumb Century, first published in 1999, was The Onion’s first bound volume, and now, in this exceptionally packaged deluxe edition, it will be the crowning pinnacle of your Onion book collection. From the dawning of what President McKinley dubbed the bold new “Coal Age” on January 1, 1900, to the Christian Right’s miraculous ascension to heaven on January 1, 2000, Our Dumb Century chronicles the events that shaped the twentieth century and preserves them for posterity.

Notes from a Small Island

Bill Bryson

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Subjects -> Travel -> Europe -> Great Britain -> England -> General

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Total reviews: 279 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it."

After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestsellingauthor of The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to returnto the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another,so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out ona grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.

Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.

"Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it."

After nearly two decades spent on British soil, Bill Bryson-bestselling author of ,i>The Mother Tongue and Made in America-decided to return to the United States. ("I had recently read," Bryson writes, "that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me.") But before departing, he set out on a grand farewell tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home.

Veering from the ludicrous to the endearing and back again, Notes from a Small Island is a delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation that has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey. The result is an uproarious social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain, from the satiric pen of an unapologetic Anglophile.