Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader

P. J. O'Rourke

Grove Atlantic, 2015 - Humor - 640 pages

P.J. O'Rourke has had a prolific career as one of America's most celebrated humorists. But that career almost didn't happen. As he tells it, "I began to write for pay in the spring of 1970. To tell the truth I didn't even mean to be a writer, I meant to be a race car driver, but I didn't have a race car."

Fortunately for us, he had to settle for writing. From his early pieces for the National Lampoon, through his classic reporting as Rolling Stone's International Affairs editor in the 80s and 90s, and his brilliant, inimitable political journalism and analysis, P.J. has been entertaining and provoking readers with high octane prose, a gonzo Republican attitude and a rare ability to make you laugh out loud. Chris Buckley once described his work as "S.J. Perlman on acid" and when Penguin first published its Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations PJ had more entries than any living writer.

For the first time Thrown Under the Omnibus brings together his funniest, most outrageous, most controversial and most loved pieces in the definitive P.J. reader. Handpicked and introduced by the humorist himself, Thrown Under the Omnibus is the essential P.J. O'Rourke anthology.

About the author

P. J. O'Rourke was born in Toledo, Ohio on November 14, 1947. He received a B. A. from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a M.A. in English from Johns Hopkins University. He worked for the magazine National Lampoon, eventually becoming editor-in-chief. He received a writing credit for National Lampoon's Lemmings which helped launch the careers of John Belushi and Chevy Chase. In 1981, he left the magazine to write screenplays including Rodney Dangerfield's Easy Money. He contributes regularly to several magazines including Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The American Spectator, The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Weekly Standard, and Rolling Stone. He is the author of 20 books including Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, All the Troubles in the World, Don't Vote! - It Just Encourages the Bastards, and How It Got That Way (And It Wasn't My Fault) (And I'll Never Do It Again).

Bibliographic information

• Title: Thrown Under the Omnibus: A Reader
• Author: P. J. O'Rourke
• Compiled by: P. J. O'Rourke
• Publisher: Grove Atlantic, 2015
• ISBN: 080212366X, 9780802123664
• Length: 640 pages
• Subjects: Humor / Form / Essays; Humor / General; Humor / Topic / Politics