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Wry Martinis
"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
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Christopher Buckley
111 books921 followersChristopher Buckley graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1976. He shipped out in the Merchant Marine and at age 24 became managing editor of Esquire magazine. At age 29, he became chief speechwriter to the Vice President of the United States, George H.W. Bush. Since 1989 he has been founder and editor-in-chief of Forbes Life magazine.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
He is the author of twelve books, most of them national bestsellers. They include: The White House Mess, Wet Work, Thank You For Smoking, God Is My Broker, Little Green Men, No Way To Treat a First Lady, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday and Supreme Courtship.
Mr. Buckley has contributed over 60 comic essays to The New Yorker magazine. His journalism, satire and criticism has been widely published—in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and other publications. He is the recipient of the 2002 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. In 2004 he was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
He is the author of twelve books, most of them national bestsellers. They include: The White House Mess, Wet Work, Thank You For Smoking, God Is My Broker, Little Green Men, No Way To Treat a First Lady, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday and Supreme Courtship.
Mr. Buckley has contributed over 60 comic essays to The New Yorker magazine. His journalism, satire and criticism has been widely published—in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New Republic, Washington Monthly, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, and other publications. He is the recipient of the 2002 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence. In 2004 he was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
October 31, 2015
79s/80s/90s Buckley. I suspect many of these essays would be laugh-out-loud funny to my parents, to pick a random example. Like so many things, I understand that it's funny, I'm just not sure why. (I have the same experience with Monkey Business jokes and Sandinista jokes.)
Still, some hilarious pieces, some really good pieces, some pieces that were obviously inspiration or research for his books. Some outright mentions of his books.
And I found his essay on the Vietnam War, his draft review, college years and reflections to be surprisingly touching. Really surprisingly touching. And his follow up column was even better.
I like how he consistently breaks what I was told was the one rock-solid, immutable law of journalism: Thou Shalt Not Use Thy Column for Revenge. All the time. It's hilarious.
Two thumbs way up.
If you enjoyed The White House Mess and Thank You for Smoking, you'll like this.
Still, some hilarious pieces, some really good pieces, some pieces that were obviously inspiration or research for his books. Some outright mentions of his books.
And I found his essay on the Vietnam War, his draft review, college years and reflections to be surprisingly touching. Really surprisingly touching. And his follow up column was even better.
I like how he consistently breaks what I was told was the one rock-solid, immutable law of journalism: Thou Shalt Not Use Thy Column for Revenge. All the time. It's hilarious.
Two thumbs way up.
If you enjoyed The White House Mess and Thank You for Smoking, you'll like this.
June 19, 2007
Okay, so he's not quite his daddy. He's different, and a hell of a lot funnier. This is the guy who wrote Thank You For Smoking. These are some essays and pieces he's written over the years for the New Yorker and The New Republic. I picked this up my senior year of high school when I was feeling smart for knowing who Christopher Buckley was. Anyway, it was worth the money. I really liked this collection quite a bit, and whipped through it over the course of a week. Very funny in a 'Oh, how amusing,' and said with an appropriate sneer and a pinch of snuff. As wry as the title says. I really recommend this collection. I think Oscar Wilde would have liked this book. It's good, smart (and therefore guilt free!) plane, train, or automobile reading.
April 28, 2008
Delightful, delightful, delightful. Unbridled snark. The reviews of Tom Clancy's novels are gems.
June 29, 2011
A mixed bag of mostly entertaining essays.
June 28, 2017
Truthfully, I only picked Wry Martinis up after doing some research into potential Bob Greene/Mike Royko feuds, having remembered a throwaway line in one piece or another and stumbling onto a page of this book where they're both mentioned via Google Books. I like Royko a bit less than I used to, having come across one or two of his more unsavory characteristics as a writer over the years; and Greene, well, never mind.
Must say, I like Christopher Buckley a lot less after having ploughed through this collection of pieces ranging in topic and mode and collected loosely by theme. It's funny in places, don't get me wrong, but since the humor and insight is dated (it was written in the nineties, after all), it doesn't resonate like it might have at the time. I'm reminded of that line in West Wing where Toby tells Will that when you use pop culture references in your speeches, they have a shelf life of about ten minutes. Same here, I suppose, only how else do you do satire and commentary?
I've always enjoyed Buckley's novels--if they're polemics or partisan, I'm simply too stupid to pick up on it. They're just funny. They're what the best satire does, in my view: they skewer everything within range. Buckley isn't above lampooning the worst in his own profession, and I can't help but suspect he lumps himself in with the herd when necessary, unsparingly. More novels, please.
However, there's a slant, sub rosa but definitely tangible, in Wry Martinis that prevented me from enjoying his prose and sense of humor. Case in point: There's an essay about two-thirds through this collection originally published in Esquire in 1983, where Buckley muses on the relief draft dodgers and civilians felt (himself included) in the late sixties during the heyday of Vietnam War protests. Buckley's position, if I read him correctly, is that all those "baby killer" shouters and ebullient boomers who ducked out of serving their country may have missed out on the togetherness and fulfillment of duty that war can provide, and even if the war was unjust, we should never remember who made the real sacrifice.
Reading this, I had to double check that it was written in the late twentieth century; I couldn't believe my eyes. Dulce et decorum est? We should have signed up or let ourselves be drafted so we could help the boys who really suffered? I bet you can find propaganda like that in the Soviet archives too.
Or perhaps I simplify. Buckley would certainly say so, and all but did in a followup column in the Post, which is reprinted in the book (and which contains the references to Greene and Royko I mentioned earlier); he hastens to assure the reader that he thinks war is bad and the Vietnam war had its share of atrocities and that conscientious objectors aren't the ones he's talking about, only the self-involved braggarts trying to justify doing what they deep down despised themselves for doing. He may have a point. This was the generation, after all, that's currently dangling health care in front of the lower earning American public and that has all but set the world on fire for the rest of us to clean up. Not, of course, that Buckley would see it like that. From his novels, I gather he's just as suspicious of corporate power as he is federal overreach, but he's a self-described conservative, and there's enough hat-tipping to George H.W. Bush to give his Republicanism away.
Buckley is great in this piece when he's writing as a man of letters (his account of his literary feud with Tom Clancy, for example, was delightful) and chronicling what I guess I'll call "extreme experiences" such as flying a fighter jet, traveling the Amazon or suffering through a hangover on a trawler in his teens. But there's a bit too much of the wrong stuff in here for me--a few too many paeans to the glory of the military; a few too many quasi-racist comments about Arab cab drivers; a few too many wealthy first-of-the-first-world problems chronicled (how to move on when your childhood mansion is sold, for example--I'll spare you further samples). This martini was plenty wry, but I'd have preferred it dirtier.
Must say, I like Christopher Buckley a lot less after having ploughed through this collection of pieces ranging in topic and mode and collected loosely by theme. It's funny in places, don't get me wrong, but since the humor and insight is dated (it was written in the nineties, after all), it doesn't resonate like it might have at the time. I'm reminded of that line in West Wing where Toby tells Will that when you use pop culture references in your speeches, they have a shelf life of about ten minutes. Same here, I suppose, only how else do you do satire and commentary?
I've always enjoyed Buckley's novels--if they're polemics or partisan, I'm simply too stupid to pick up on it. They're just funny. They're what the best satire does, in my view: they skewer everything within range. Buckley isn't above lampooning the worst in his own profession, and I can't help but suspect he lumps himself in with the herd when necessary, unsparingly. More novels, please.
However, there's a slant, sub rosa but definitely tangible, in Wry Martinis that prevented me from enjoying his prose and sense of humor. Case in point: There's an essay about two-thirds through this collection originally published in Esquire in 1983, where Buckley muses on the relief draft dodgers and civilians felt (himself included) in the late sixties during the heyday of Vietnam War protests. Buckley's position, if I read him correctly, is that all those "baby killer" shouters and ebullient boomers who ducked out of serving their country may have missed out on the togetherness and fulfillment of duty that war can provide, and even if the war was unjust, we should never remember who made the real sacrifice.
Reading this, I had to double check that it was written in the late twentieth century; I couldn't believe my eyes. Dulce et decorum est? We should have signed up or let ourselves be drafted so we could help the boys who really suffered? I bet you can find propaganda like that in the Soviet archives too.
Or perhaps I simplify. Buckley would certainly say so, and all but did in a followup column in the Post, which is reprinted in the book (and which contains the references to Greene and Royko I mentioned earlier); he hastens to assure the reader that he thinks war is bad and the Vietnam war had its share of atrocities and that conscientious objectors aren't the ones he's talking about, only the self-involved braggarts trying to justify doing what they deep down despised themselves for doing. He may have a point. This was the generation, after all, that's currently dangling health care in front of the lower earning American public and that has all but set the world on fire for the rest of us to clean up. Not, of course, that Buckley would see it like that. From his novels, I gather he's just as suspicious of corporate power as he is federal overreach, but he's a self-described conservative, and there's enough hat-tipping to George H.W. Bush to give his Republicanism away.
Buckley is great in this piece when he's writing as a man of letters (his account of his literary feud with Tom Clancy, for example, was delightful) and chronicling what I guess I'll call "extreme experiences" such as flying a fighter jet, traveling the Amazon or suffering through a hangover on a trawler in his teens. But there's a bit too much of the wrong stuff in here for me--a few too many paeans to the glory of the military; a few too many quasi-racist comments about Arab cab drivers; a few too many wealthy first-of-the-first-world problems chronicled (how to move on when your childhood mansion is sold, for example--I'll spare you further samples). This martini was plenty wry, but I'd have preferred it dirtier.
January 13, 2021
4 stars out of 5 - I read a hardback from the library over the past few evenings. Up-rated for the fact that many of the short and medium length magazine articles included are stunningly good, occasionally Tom Wolfe level good. Down rated for the fact that the editor buried the lede by starting off with only passable ones, so the beginning few dragged a bit.
July 18, 2022
This is a collection of his magazine articles. No where near as satisfying as the novels.
June 30, 2023
Got off to a fun start then became too “lecturey” later on
May 15, 2021
[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]
I picked this up years ago, and it finally worked its way to the top of the TBR pile. It's a 1997 collection of pieces by Christopher Buckley (son of the late great WFB, Jr.); most previously appeared in magazines like Esquire and the New Yorker. The book has adulatory back-blurbs from Joseph Heller, John Updike, and Tom Wolfe; that's pretty impressive.
Oddly enough, the funniest thing in here is the index, a few pages of things like:
Ginsburg, Supreme Court JusticeYes, that still holds up. Unfortunately a lot of current-events stuff here has outlived its shelf life, but if you can put your mind back 15-20 years, you might get into it.
Ruth Bader
secret sex life of, 56-59
There are a lot of humorous bits, but the best are straight reporting about things like what goes on aboard the Nimitz and—no foolin'—flying in an F-16 with the USAF Thunderbirds. Very cool and interesting.
Unfortunately, Buckley plays it safe when touching on politics. There's nothing here to ruffle the feathers of your average New Yorker reader. (He created a bit of a storm by endorsing Obama in 2008; Iowahawk's parody is much funnier than anything here.)
Also (page 147) there are two glaring mistakes: Rod Taylor didn't rescue Yvette Mimieux from the Eloi in The Time Machine—she was an Eloi, and was rescued from the Morlocks. And astronauts don't pull twenty-five Gs during liftoff (unless something is very very wrong); the shuttle maxed out at about 3 Gs.
November 5, 2010
Wry Martinis by Christopher Buckley (pp. 256)
Acclaimed satirist, Christopher Buckley puts together a collection of previously published magazine articles. I’m a fan of Buckley’s fiction novels and his travel non-fiction is top notch. For the first half of book, I found the title of the book to the most entertaining and interesting piece of writing and had it not been for my own stubbornness, I may have not gotten to the good stuff.
‘Apertifs’, ‘Homage to Tom Clancy’, ‘Spin Cycle’, and ‘Want to Buy a Dead Dictator’ serve up nearly 60% of the content. Most of it is high camp, repetitive, and definitely dated. The 80s, early 90s and end of the Cold War political icons read much like Saturday Night Live sketches, but sketches that you just want to turn off. I wouldn’t want to read any of these pieces again, some were quite cliché, but for sartorial historians or cultural anthropologists there may be some interesting texture to glean.
Once you get past all the “Oh, look at me being cleaver” pieces, the writing and content is great. His long form essays on the his experience with the Nimitz and an F-16 fascinate and show that if any writer is going to relay an experience that you’ll never personally have, you can’t do much better than having Buckley be your play-by-play guy.
‘Hardly Roughing It’ gets into travel pieces and ‘Babes’ and ‘Formative Years’ reflects on his east coast boarding school and college years. All of these are a solid B. ‘A Few More for Road’ is also mish-mash of interesting personal reflections.
For readers looking for solid long form pieces, start at page 131 and skip the stale fish in the first half of the book. Or if you’re looking for the best of the best, read the 38 pages that make up ‘Guy Stuff’ specifically: ‘I Visitz the Nimitz’ and ‘How I Went Nine Gs in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times’.
Acclaimed satirist, Christopher Buckley puts together a collection of previously published magazine articles. I’m a fan of Buckley’s fiction novels and his travel non-fiction is top notch. For the first half of book, I found the title of the book to the most entertaining and interesting piece of writing and had it not been for my own stubbornness, I may have not gotten to the good stuff.
‘Apertifs’, ‘Homage to Tom Clancy’, ‘Spin Cycle’, and ‘Want to Buy a Dead Dictator’ serve up nearly 60% of the content. Most of it is high camp, repetitive, and definitely dated. The 80s, early 90s and end of the Cold War political icons read much like Saturday Night Live sketches, but sketches that you just want to turn off. I wouldn’t want to read any of these pieces again, some were quite cliché, but for sartorial historians or cultural anthropologists there may be some interesting texture to glean.
Once you get past all the “Oh, look at me being cleaver” pieces, the writing and content is great. His long form essays on the his experience with the Nimitz and an F-16 fascinate and show that if any writer is going to relay an experience that you’ll never personally have, you can’t do much better than having Buckley be your play-by-play guy.
‘Hardly Roughing It’ gets into travel pieces and ‘Babes’ and ‘Formative Years’ reflects on his east coast boarding school and college years. All of these are a solid B. ‘A Few More for Road’ is also mish-mash of interesting personal reflections.
For readers looking for solid long form pieces, start at page 131 and skip the stale fish in the first half of the book. Or if you’re looking for the best of the best, read the 38 pages that make up ‘Guy Stuff’ specifically: ‘I Visitz the Nimitz’ and ‘How I Went Nine Gs in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times’.
April 9, 2016
This collection is the first nonfiction of Christopher Buckley’s I have read, although I have read most of his novels. His wit and humor is on display in his nonfiction as vibrantly as it is in his fiction. Maybe more so.
“Wry Martinis” starts off with a nice intro called “My Title Problem”. It begins the collection with a bang, supplying wit and humor and a hint at what is to come.
Now this collection was published in 1997 and most of the pieces are from the eighties and nineties, and so it is very dated. I think some references will fall on deaf ears, especially ones about the OJ Simpson trial, the Clinton & (first) Bush years, etc. Most of the items in this text were previously published, and I think the stronger pieces are the ones where Buckley is not writing a satire or humor piece, but rather just an observational essay on some subject (usually himself). Those pieces are much funnier than the ones where it is obvious he was hired to write “something funny”.
The section of the book titled “Guy Stuff” is entertaining and one of the text’s strongest. Essays that appear later in the book like “Hot Hot Hot” (about femininity and ladies fashion) and “The Passion of St. Matt” (a rant against modern vernacular translations of the Bible) are very very good.
One of the things I hugely appreciated about Buckley in “Wry Martinis” are the immense number of allusions and classical references he makes (unobtrusively) in much of his writing. Do we have writers like that anymore? Who have had a classical education and know how to use it?
This collection ends with a short essay called “Wish I’d Said That” and Buckley’s version of an Index (very clever) that concludes the experience in a satisfying manner. I will read his much more recent collection of essays, “But Enough About You”, soon.
“Wry Martinis” starts off with a nice intro called “My Title Problem”. It begins the collection with a bang, supplying wit and humor and a hint at what is to come.
Now this collection was published in 1997 and most of the pieces are from the eighties and nineties, and so it is very dated. I think some references will fall on deaf ears, especially ones about the OJ Simpson trial, the Clinton & (first) Bush years, etc. Most of the items in this text were previously published, and I think the stronger pieces are the ones where Buckley is not writing a satire or humor piece, but rather just an observational essay on some subject (usually himself). Those pieces are much funnier than the ones where it is obvious he was hired to write “something funny”.
The section of the book titled “Guy Stuff” is entertaining and one of the text’s strongest. Essays that appear later in the book like “Hot Hot Hot” (about femininity and ladies fashion) and “The Passion of St. Matt” (a rant against modern vernacular translations of the Bible) are very very good.
One of the things I hugely appreciated about Buckley in “Wry Martinis” are the immense number of allusions and classical references he makes (unobtrusively) in much of his writing. Do we have writers like that anymore? Who have had a classical education and know how to use it?
This collection ends with a short essay called “Wish I’d Said That” and Buckley’s version of an Index (very clever) that concludes the experience in a satisfying manner. I will read his much more recent collection of essays, “But Enough About You”, soon.
September 11, 2015
A collection of essays and other little bits by the scion of William F. Buckley. You know, Christopher Buckley probably hates the fact that his family connection is constantly brought up in reviews, and I would be a touch more sensitive to his feelings, but, frankly, I think he’s profited from it and why not give credit where it is due? I’ll admit it–I’m envious. Here was a boy born with a golden dictionary in his hand and money to boot. And then he gets to go to Harvard, work on the Harvard Lampoon, be an editor at Forbes (and do a little junket travel as detailed in one of the more nauseatingly sycophantic articles here), write speeches for the Vice-President, and then he becomes a best-selling humorist. I’m so green with envy I’m sitting here looking a bit like the Incredible Hulk.
It wouldn’t be quite so bad except that he even sounds like a nice guy, someone that I could be friends with (if I was wealthy or a politician or a fashion designer or the owner of my own company or you get the picture). Even his politics don’t rub me quite the wrong way as his fellow conservative humorist, P.J. O’Rourke. I liked these little essays so much that I probably won’t be able to resist something else by Buckley, most likely his satire on the tobacco lobby, Thanks for Smoking. Damn–I wish I had written that.
It wouldn’t be quite so bad except that he even sounds like a nice guy, someone that I could be friends with (if I was wealthy or a politician or a fashion designer or the owner of my own company or you get the picture). Even his politics don’t rub me quite the wrong way as his fellow conservative humorist, P.J. O’Rourke. I liked these little essays so much that I probably won’t be able to resist something else by Buckley, most likely his satire on the tobacco lobby, Thanks for Smoking. Damn–I wish I had written that.
December 10, 2018
I had already planned to read Thank You For Smoking and No Way To Treat a First Lady, but this was my introduction to the author, quite a bit late to the game (by 20 years).
As it is a collection of various magazine articles, it reads like the David Sedaris of 1990s Republicans, so a funny, but a little more dry (with some pretty lofty vocabulary that had me alternately impressed/stumped: marmoreal, metonymy, pulchritude, palimpsest, eschatology, synecdoche).
Only one chapter had me in stitches, and some of the commentary was decidedly right-leaning, for example, traveling with "stereotypical" Californians who were a target of ridicule. Interesting take on the stuff I'd forgotten about or wasn't following very closely 20 years ago. He mentions Donald Trump, Rudy Guliani, Joe Biden, the Clintons and Ann Landers--and shares her commentary on variety of personalities, political and artistic (some of which overlap his...her take on Bill & Hillary: "They make their own fun."). His chapter on Yale had me wondering what kinds of stories he would like to share now (although Buckley graduated in 1976, Kavanaugh in 1987).
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8...
As it is a collection of various magazine articles, it reads like the David Sedaris of 1990s Republicans, so a funny, but a little more dry (with some pretty lofty vocabulary that had me alternately impressed/stumped: marmoreal, metonymy, pulchritude, palimpsest, eschatology, synecdoche).
Only one chapter had me in stitches, and some of the commentary was decidedly right-leaning, for example, traveling with "stereotypical" Californians who were a target of ridicule. Interesting take on the stuff I'd forgotten about or wasn't following very closely 20 years ago. He mentions Donald Trump, Rudy Guliani, Joe Biden, the Clintons and Ann Landers--and shares her commentary on variety of personalities, political and artistic (some of which overlap his...her take on Bill & Hillary: "They make their own fun."). His chapter on Yale had me wondering what kinds of stories he would like to share now (although Buckley graduated in 1976, Kavanaugh in 1987).
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8...
June 8, 2009
Entertaining essay collection. I am on the record as having issues with Christopher Buckley, but his stuff generally makes a good light read.
However, I would have been embarrassed to be seen reading this book in public, the cover illustration (combined with the pretty lame title -- it sounds like something some jackass who thinks s/he's the reincarnation of Dorothy Parker might come up with as an internet screen name) was SO INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE. Much worse than the one pictured. (Imagine Christopher Buckley dressed like an organ grinder's monkey, looking vaguely embarrassed to be posing with a cocktail shaker. Now picture him badly photoshopped into a giant martini glass).
In the future, if I want to be ashamed of my reading choices, I'll pick up a romance novel.
However, I would have been embarrassed to be seen reading this book in public, the cover illustration (combined with the pretty lame title -- it sounds like something some jackass who thinks s/he's the reincarnation of Dorothy Parker might come up with as an internet screen name) was SO INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE. Much worse than the one pictured. (Imagine Christopher Buckley dressed like an organ grinder's monkey, looking vaguely embarrassed to be posing with a cocktail shaker. Now picture him badly photoshopped into a giant martini glass).
In the future, if I want to be ashamed of my reading choices, I'll pick up a romance novel.
June 13, 2013
Wry Martinis is a collection of articles Christopher Buckley has written over the years (80s-90s).
On the whole the articles are well written and many display the humour expected of Buckley. Some of the pieces are enjoyable to read and are still relevant today where they refer to well known personalities (the Bush family) or current events (the military).
However, I found most to relate to personalities and events strongly related to 80s America and so I found little of interest in these. Thats not a criticism, its just these articles just failed to interest me at all.
Overall i would rate this a 2 stars (OK), as I couldnt really fault any part of it, but it just didnt interest me.
On the whole the articles are well written and many display the humour expected of Buckley. Some of the pieces are enjoyable to read and are still relevant today where they refer to well known personalities (the Bush family) or current events (the military).
However, I found most to relate to personalities and events strongly related to 80s America and so I found little of interest in these. Thats not a criticism, its just these articles just failed to interest me at all.
Overall i would rate this a 2 stars (OK), as I couldnt really fault any part of it, but it just didnt interest me.
September 10, 2010
Though it was my husband who had picked out this book at the recent book sale, I decided to read it because I had enjoyed Mr. Buckley's memoir of his parents. It is a complilation of articles which he wrote for various publications over quite a period of time. Some are quite short, others seem a little long, but most are entertaining. Probably the wry could refer to his sense of humor, which is rather good. One oif them, which could have appeared in the memoir is about his mother Pat Buckley, and her fashion sense. She must have been quite a person.
July 2, 2020
Christopher Buckley's Wry Martinis is a collection of his articles and columns from the 1990s. That being said, the material was a bit dated. There are several OJ Simpson and Bill Clinton jokes and for some reason, there are several Tom Clancy jabs. The jokes are delivered with his trademark political sarcastic wit, but I definitely prefer his novels to this collection. There is also no cohesiveness to the stories and nothing binding them together. I would liked to see a foreword or afterword kind of pulling it all together. But it's a fun, quick read, if you are a fan of Christopher Buckley.
July 22, 2015
- I LOVED Buckley's "Thank You For Smoking" and his "Little Green Men", and even his "That's No Way To Treat A Lady" was really good. This book is a collection of his articles from The New Yorker Magazine and the New York Times, The Washington Post, Esquire, etc., and range from so-so to quite funny
- his article regarding the Pope's appearance on Oprah (to promote his new book) was laugh-out-loud-funny, as were a couple of his O.J. Simpson-themed pieces.
- I'll continue to follow his writing with interest
- his article regarding the Pope's appearance on Oprah (to promote his new book) was laugh-out-loud-funny, as were a couple of his O.J. Simpson-themed pieces.
- I'll continue to follow his writing with interest
June 16, 2009
A nice collection. There are some hits, some misses. Buckley is clearly a craftsman, when it comes to writing, as I expected. A few of the essays have parts that make you want to laugh or gasp on the subway. Definitely recommend it. I will definitely read more of him.
February 5, 2008
Technically I've been "currently reading" this book for months. I do love his short stories, but these have been dragging. I think I need to skip to another section.
August 14, 2008
A collection of essays and magazine pieces by Christopher Buckley. I wasn't enthralled.
January 12, 2009
An entertaining, quick read. Especially liked his essay on his children's homework.
December 25, 2009
Great readings- short stories published in the magazines in 1987-1996, fun to read.
March 5, 2011
It just wasn't funny. I would say the humor was dated from writing it for magazines from the 90s, but I read some of it in the New Yorker then, and it wasn't funny when it was timely, either.
January 1, 2012
Just started reading the foreword and already I'm laughing! I love Christopher Buckley!
December 26, 2012
Witty, clever, a periscope view of the 70s and 80s. Most of the essays in this collection are funny, a few are serious (the "Formative Years" section is the best of both).
January 27, 2013
...a gently humorous book to avoid the 11pm news
February 9, 2013
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11695719
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11695719
March 16, 2013
Well-written and topical essays that have appeared elsewhere but mostly missed by attention. Entertaining and thoughtful.
April 26, 2013
Lots of good columns. Some insight into the D.C. world, which is so alien to us normal humans. Plenty of humor.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews