Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Hyperion
ISBN: 9780786884087
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
A riotously funny, razor-sharp indictment of America's cultural wasteland by one of its most merciless critics.
Red Lobster, White Trash, & the Blue Lagoon
Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Hyperion
ISBN: 9780786863327
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
The author of "The Unkindest Cut", whose popular column appears weekly in "TV Guide", sets off in search of the Holy Grail of Horridness--and encounters some surprisingly non-terrible phenomena--in this riotously funny, razor-sharp indictment of our cultural wasteland.
Author: Joe QueenanOne for the Books
Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101601191
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Book Description
One of America’s leading humorists and author of the bestseller Closing Time examines his own obsession with books Joe Queenan became a voracious reader as a means of escape from a joyless childhood in a Philadelphia housing project. In the years since then he has dedicated himself to an assortment of idiosyncratic reading challenges: spending a year reading only short books, spending a year reading books he always suspected he would hate, spending a year reading books he picked with his eyes closed. In One for the Books, Queenan tries to come to terms with his own eccentric reading style—how many more books will he have time to read in his lifetime? Why does he refuse to read books hailed by reviewers as “astonishing”? Why does he refuse to lend out books? Will he ever buy an e-book? Why does he habitually read thirty to forty books simultaneously? Why are there so many people to whom the above questions do not even matter—and what do they read? Acerbically funny yet passionate and oddly affectionate, One for the Books is a reading experience that true book lovers will find unforgettable.
My Goodness
Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Pan MacMillan
ISBN: 9780330393249
Category : Cynicism..
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
This is a journey of spititual self-regeneration by a mean-spirited, dried-up cynic. The author looks at the icons of goodness, such as Sting and Susan Sarandon, and sets out to make sure people get the facts and figures about being a wonderful person.
Closing Time
Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101032561
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356
Book Description
An affecting memoir from one of America's most provocative humorists Over the past two decades, Joe Queenan has established himself as a scourge of everything that is half-baked, half-witted, and halfhearted in American culture. In Closing Time, Queenan turns his sights on a more serious and a more personal topic: his childhood in a Philadelphia housing project in the early 1960s. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Closing Time recounts Queenan's Irish Catholic upbringing in a family dominated by his erratic, alcoholic father, and his long flight away from the dismal confines of his neighborhood into the greater, wide world. A story about salvation and escape, Closing Time has at its heart the makings of a classic American autobiography.
Queenan Country
Author: Joe QueenanPublisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429900822
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 171
Book Description
In this hilarious romp through England, one of America's preeminent humorists seeks the answer to an eternal question: What makes the Brits tick? One semitropical Fourth of July, Joe Queenan's English wife suggested that the family might like a chicken vindaloo in lieu of the customary barbecue. It was this pitiless act of gastronomic cultural oppression, coupled with dread of the fearsome Christmas pudding that awaited him for dessert, that inspired the author to make a solitary pilgrimage to Great Britain. Freed from the obligation to visit an unending procession of Aunty Margarets and Cousin Robins, as he had done for the first twenty-six years of their marriage, Queenan decided that he would not come back from Albion until he had finally penetrated the limey heart of darkness. His trip was not in vain. Crisscrossing Old Blighty like Cromwell hunting Papists, Queenan finally came to terms with the choochiness, squiffiness, ponciness, and sticky wicketness that lie at the heart of the British character. Here he is trying to find out whose idea it was to impale King Edward II on a red-hot poker-and what this says about English sexual politics. Here he is in an Edinburgh pub foolishly trying to defend Paul McCartney's "Ebony and Ivory." And here he is, trapped in a concert hall with a Coventry-based all-Brit Eagles tribute band named Talon who resent that they are nowhere near as famous as their evil nemeses, the Illegal Eagles. At the end of his epic adventure, the author returns chastened, none the wiser, but encouraged that his wife is actually as sane as she is, in light of her fellow countrymen.
Author: Nancy FrazierA Futile and Stupid Gesture
Author: Josh KarpPublisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569762279
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434
Book Description
Now a Netflix original film starring Will Forte, Domhnall Gleeson, and Emmy Rossum. Comic genius Doug Kenney cofounded National Lampoon, cowrote Animal House and Caddyshack, and changed the face of American comedy before mysteriously falling to his death at the age of 33. This is the first-ever biography of Kenney--the heart and soul of National Lampoon—reconstructing the history of that magazine as it redefined American humor, complete with all its brilliant and eccentric characters. Filled with vivid stories from New York, Harvard Yard, Hollywood, and Middle America, this chronicle shares how the magazine spawned a comedy revolution with the radio shows, stage productions, and film projects that launched the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Gilda Radner, while inspiring Saturday Night Live and everything else funny that's happened since 1970. Based on more than 130 interviews conducted with key players including Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis, P. J. O'Rourke, John Landis, and others and boasting behind-the-scenes stories of how Animal House and Caddyshack were made, this book helps capture the nostalgia, humor, and enduring legacy that Doug Kenney instilled in National Lampoon--America's greatest humor magazine.
Last Night at the Lobster
Author: Stewart O'NanPublisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1925575616
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 118
Book Description
The Red Lobster chain restaurant perched in the far corner of a run-down American mall hasn't been making its numbers and headquarters has pulled the plug. But manager Manny DeLeon still needs to navigate a tricky last shift with a near-mutinous staff and the final onslaught of hungry retirees, lunatics and office parties. All the while, he's wondering how to handle the waitress he's still in love with, what to do about his pregnant girlfriend and where to find the Christmas present that will make everything better. Stewart O'Nan has been called 'the bard of the working class', and Last Night at the Lobster is a masterclass of precision and empathy.
