Product Description

"Fifty years ago, the three funniest writers in the English language were named Shaw, Mencken and Muggeridge. Today, they're named Thompson, O'Rourke and Christopher Buckley.Read this book and you'll die laughing. But as Wrong-Way Kennedy said, 'What a way to go.'"
-- Tom Wolfe

"Funny and devastating."
-- Entertainment Weekly

"Clever, erudite, sophisticated, funny and flip. Buckley shows that his antennae are ever alert to the absurdities in our world."
-- Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Buckley's comic muse -- and as Wry Martinis attests, he is one of the rarest specimens in his generation of that endangered species, the authentically inventive comic writer -- adorns the Benchley-Thurber line of social observation. He is probably the most versatile practitioner of that tradition today.... Wry Martinis has an astonishing range, all the way from the history of the miniskirt to the language of the New American Bible."
-- Boston Globe

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #674648 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-01
• Released on: 1998-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Amazon.com Review
Wry Martinis is the perfect title for this intoxicating volume--though Christopher Buckley pretends he had a hard time coming up with it. But as his fans know, effortless superiority is Buckley's main m.o. In this collection of 20 years' of occasional pieces for such magazines as the New Yorker and the New Republic, he ranges from deadpan parody to devastating takes on all manner of American preoccupations, from celebrity to fly fishing to the Times bestseller list. (No. 2 in Advice, How-to, and Miscellaneous: "Becoming God, by Beepah Doolik. Self-deification in a single afternoon.") Usually all it takes is a single sentence to set Buckley off. In 1994, when USA Today announced the expected launch of a 24-hour conservative cable network, he happily riffed on morning, afternoon, and nighttime programming. Suffice it to say that between 9 and 11 a.m., Phyllis! With Phyllis Schafly will hold the screen. That day's episode? "Pacific tuna fishermen explain how dolphins commit suicide by hurling themselves into the nets; also: how to tell if your son is queer." (Please head straight to page 12 for further listings.)

Not that our provocateur doesn't have his serious side, too. It shows up in his explorations of his own military envy, asthma, and cluster headaches, but also in some unlikely zones--including a sympathetic profile of Eppie Lederer, better known as agony aunt Ann Landers. (When Eppie tells Buckley that her husband left her, "an eyebrow arches, the right dimple deepens like a Florida sinkhole.") And then there is "My Own Private Sunday School," two pages on talking to his 6-year-old daughter about belief and death. Of course, even here the mischief-maker shines through, since the beginner's Bible Buckley buys is sorely lacking in verbal panache: "The chapter about the Roman discovering Jesus' empty tomb is titled 'Surprise!'--which is sort of cute, even if it does make a pretty crucial New Testament event sound a bit like a panel from Where's Waldo?" Buckley is ever on the hunt for our foibles and endless absurdities; and despite his seemingly straight-up hilarity, his method requires the utmost skill, imagination, and--oddly enough--affection. --Kerry Fried

From Publishers Weekly
The author of Thank You for Smoking has put together more than 65 bits and pieces of journeyman work (much of it very amusing indeed) from sources ranging from the New Yorker to the New York Times to Forbes to the Portsmith Abbey Alumni magazine. Touched on, usually quite briefly, are subjects such as mad cow disease (could the animals be used to counteract illegal emigration from Mexico?), drunken Yale undergraduates (a growth industry, it seems), presidential debates (which, he observes, would be improved if all involved had three martinis before things got under way) and the Unabomber (the next client of O.J.'s dream team?). There are also accounts of hoaxes successfully perpetrated by Buckley, including the well-publicized "rumor" that an impoverished Russia plans to auction off Lenin's embalmed corpse. The section called "Homage to Tom Clancy" is typical of the book's variety. It begins with a none-too-serious profile of the author written soon after the success of The Hunt for Red October, followed by a parody of Clancy as a U.S. senator, then a savage review of Debt of Honor (Clancy is "the James Fenimore Cooper of his day, which is to say the most successful bad writer of his generation"), followed by an exchange of actual faxes between an unamused Clancy and a puckish Buckley. As a comic, Buckley frequently suffers from the Saturday Night Live syndrome: his ideas are often funnier than his punch lines. But readers hell-bent on amusing themselves will find laughs enough here. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
It has been, or is about to be, truly said that all compilations of periodical writings, even the best, lose something of their flavor, their immediacy, or whatever when put between the covers of a book. This observation is not likely to bother the reader who treats this collection of 66 essays, some written for the occasion but most unearthed from assorted periodicals, as it should be treated, i.e., dipped into at decent intervals. Judicious dippers will find an abundant range of topics in terms of time, scene, style, and subject that will by turns amuse, pique, entertain, and even annoy them. When Buckley (son of that famous William F. and author of Thank You for Smoking, LJ 4/1/94) hits on a topic, he sinks his teeth into it, and it doesn't take long for the reader to realize he has an acute sense of the ridiculous combined with a wicked gift for satire. Such subjects as Pat Robertson, houseguests, best-seller lists, O.J. Simpson, Whitewater, and Christmas, to name a few, take on new life. What Buckley seems to be saying is that life has its ironies. Recommended.
-?A.J. Anderson, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Someone wicked this way comes.
I found a good illustration of Christopher Buckley's sense of humor while reading of one of the ocean crossings that he had taken with his Father. Buckley the Elder routinely sailed an ocean every 5 years or so, and his Son was often part of the crew. All the ship's members had tasks, and on this trip Christopher was in charge of bringing along projects for fun and diversion during the extended voyage. The one I will remember was the model he brought for the group to construct, of course a ship, and for him it could be no other, The Titanic.

His is not low brow cheap shot humor, although you may be surprised by how inept some other Authors are when engaging him in written debate. He writes within this book on a variety of subjects guaranteed to make you laugh, and for those that take themselves, or a given subject too seriously, he will annoy you. Even if the latter group is the one you find yourself in, if only to yourself, you still cannot deny the wit, and the intellect that is behind his thoughts.

So if The Pope appearing on Oprah selling his new book intrigues you, or perhaps Johnnie Cochran writing a letter of recommendation for the squeezed fruit who was his client piques your interest, this read is for you. If the two topics I mention do not suffice, there is always his written feud with Tom Clancy, satire on Star Trek, or perhaps the "How I went 9 G's in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times", there is something here that will cause you great pain in your sides, as he is the cause of pain for his adversaries in their nether regions.

The stories I mentioned are a tiny fraction of what awaits the reader, for I have not touched upon the selling of Lenin's embalmed corpse.

Buckley the Younger is wonderful, or as the Author Tom Wolfe states "Fifty years ago the 3 funniest writers in the English language were named Shaw, Mencken and Muggeridge....today they're named Thompson, O'Rourke, and Christopher Buckley..."

If you have not tried this man's work, this is a great place to start.

Better than most books, but ho-hum for Buckley
Chris Buckley is my favorite author, having written masterful satires like "Thank You for Smoking" and "Little Green Men." This is not a novel, as I was dismayed to learn, but just a collection of Buckley essays. Each is cute and funny, and the set makes for nice, lite, magazine-style reading. The essay about George Bush (Sr.) and martinis is hilarious -- I still refer to an extra-dry martini (just wave the vermouth bottle over the glass, not opening it) as the "George Bush" martini. Get this book if you have read everything else Buckley has written.

One of the funniest books to hit the stores in some time.
Wry Martinis is an easy to read, funny collection of essays. Buckley has a wry wit and his outlook on topics from the old Soviet Union to Fly Fishing will keep you laughing for quite a while. Especially fun is his fax feud with Tom Clancy