Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, 'What's Funny About This'

by P. J. O'Rourke Narrated by Dan John Miller

Overview

Holidays in Hell follows P. J. O'Rourke on a global fun-finding mission to the most desperate places on the planet, from the bombed-out streets of Beirut to the stultifying blandness of Heritage USA. P.J.'s unforgettable adventures abroad include storming student protesters' barricades in South Korea, interviewing Communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover in Arab garb at Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock Mosque.

Packed with P.J.'s classic riffs on everything from Polish nightlife under communism to Third World driving tips, Holidays in Hell is one of the best-loved books by one of today's most celebrated humorists - a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology.

"This is funny, outrageous, perceptive stuff, written with brio." -The Washington Post Book World

"O'Rourke. . . seems to have teethed on brass knuckles and suckled on bile. He is also one of the funniest writers in America, or wherever else he may go to satisfy his desperate need to extract humor from folly and chaos." -Time

"To say that P. J. O'Rourke is funny is like saying that the Rocky Mountains are scenic - accurate but insufficient. At best he's downright exhilarating." - Chicago Tribune

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172668005
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	11/01/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

Related Subjects

• Humor
• Travel
• Current Affairs & Politics
• Travel - General & Miscellaneous
• World Politics
• Diplomacy & International Relations
• Essays and Individual Humorists
• Political Humor
• Travel and Transportation - Humor

Read an Excerpt

Holidays in Hell

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By P. J. O'Rourke

Grove Atlantic, Inc.

Copyright © 1988 P. J. O'Rourke
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8021-3701-6

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Chapter One

On Commie Concrete:

"From bumpy landing until bumpy takeoff, you spend your time in Poland looking at bad concrete. Everything is made of it-streets, buildings, floors, walls, ceilings, roofs, window frames, lampposts, statues, benches, plus some of the food, I think. Commies love concrete, but they don't know how to make it. Concrete is a mixture of cement, gravel and straw? No? Gravel, water and wood pulp? Water, potatoes and lard?"

On Sight-Seeing in Lebanon:

Important archaeological work has been done in Lebanon, exposing six millennia of human misbehavior. The country has been overrun in turn by Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Arabs again, Turks, French, more Arabs, Israelis and occasional U.S. Marines. Perhaps by means of the past one can begin to comprehend the present. Or learn which way to run from the future.

On the America's Cup:

Rich people are nuts for boats. The first thing that a yo-yo like Simon LeBon or Ted Turner does when he gets rich is buy a boat. And, if he's a high-hat kind of rich-that is, if he made his money screwing thousands of people in arbitrage instead of hundreds selling used cars-he buys a sailboat. I don't know about you, but if I got richI'd buy something warm and weatherproof that held still, like a bar.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Holidays in Hell by P. J. O'Rourke Copyright © 1988 by P. J. O'Rourke. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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