Description:

Republican Party Reptile and Holidays in Hell were best-sellers around the world and established P.J. O’Rourke as the humorist for our times. In Modern Manners our newest cultural guru provides the essential accessory for the truly contemporary man or woman—a rulebook for living in a world without rules.

Traditionally, good manners were a means of becoming as bland and invisible as everyone else, and thus of avoiding calling attention to one’s own awkwardness and stupidity. Today, with everyone wanting to appear special, stupidity is at a premium and manners—as outrageous and bizarre as possible—are a wonderful way to distinguish ourselves, or have a fine time trying.

Modern Manners is an irreverent and hilarious guide to anti-etiquette for the 1990s and beyond that offers pointed advice on a range of topics from sex and entertaining to reading habits and death. With the most up-to-date forms of vulgarity, churlishness, and presumption, the latest fashions in discourtesy and barbarous display, P.J. O’Rourke makes it easier for all of us to survive with style in a rude world.

A Few of P. J. O’Rourke’s Rules for Living in the Modern World:

·         “It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than tospend tonight like there’s no money.”

·         “Guns are always the best method for private suicide. Drugs are too chancy. You might miscalculate the dosage and just have a good time.”

·         “A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.”

 

·         “Never refuse wine. It is an odd but universally held opinion that anyone who doesn’t drink must be an alcoholic.”

·         “A woman should dress to attract attention. To attract the most attention, a woman should be either nude or wearing something as expensive as getting her nude is going to be.”

“We must be as obsequious as possible to famous people and do everything in our power to make them like us. Fame is a communicable disease. And if you get screwed by someone who’s got it, you may catch it yourself.”

Praise

“Modern Manners is O’Rourke doing what he has always done: making hilarious, insightful, often vicious fun of the world and all its inhabitants.”—Kim Hubbard, People

“It’s high time we deep-sixed the Emily Post and went with the O’Rourke.”—Frank Gannon, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Modern Manners is the sort of book that will have you calling friends at odd hours, and maybe even pestering total strangers seated near you on airplanes, just so you can read some particularly amusing passage out loud.”—Joe Leydon, Houston Post

“A reader who rushes through [Modern Manners] from cover to cover—like I did—will feel like a child who has gorged on chocolate cake: happy, but a bit disappointed that it’s all gone. The reason O’Rourke’s book is so successful, however, is not just his great sense of humor. O’Rourke’s writing has a cutting edge behind it, which makes a reader’s laughter just a bit thought-provoking, and just a bit rueful. . . . Much of [Modern Manners] is too risqué to reprint, but it’s all very funny.”—Kerry Luft, Chicago Tribune

“Extremely funny . . . [Modern Manners] must not be left where children can find it, for not only will they imbibe [O’Rourke’s] ideas on sex, drugs and booze (he’s for them), but they will also receive guidance on other forbidden things, like playing with food, which ‘must be done exactly right or it will lead to social disaster.’ . . . His book is the perfect companion for that laziest of summer pleasures, ‘thoughtless fun.’”—Susan Dooley, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

“What O’Rourke has given us is not so much a book on etiquette as a collection of aphorisms in the tradition of Ambrose Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. No matter what you call it, you’ll laugh.”—Roger Harris, Newark Star-Ledger