P.J. O'Rourke

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born

November 14, 1947 in Toledo, Ohio, The United States

gender

male

website

http://www.pjorourke.com/

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PJOrourke

genre

Nonfiction, Humor, Politics

About this author

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Patrick Jake O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, and writer. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He is perhaps best known in the United Kingdom as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.

He is the author of 13 books, most recently On The Wealth of Nations, a commentary on Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (and the first in The Atlantic Monthly's "Books That Changed The World" series). According to a 60 M...more

39 posts
P.J. O'Rourke's Blog

P.J. O'Rourke isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but he does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from his feed.

The Times Loses It: Sense and nonsense about Tucson

It was a weekend of great sorrow. On Saturday, January 8, an insane young man tried to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, injuring her horribly. The man then fired his gun into a small political gathering, murdering a nine-year-old girl, a federal judge, a congressional staffer, and three of Giffords's constituents. Thirteen other people were wounded. In the midst of life we are in death. T... read more »

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Published on January 17, 2011 06:01 • 86 views

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Books by P.J. O'Rourke

Average rating: 3.74 · 7,913 ratings · 774 reviews · 37 distinct works

	Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by P.J. O'Rourke, Andrew Ferguson (Foreword by) 3.99 avg rating — 1,219 ratings — published 1991 — 10 editions	My rating:
	Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" 3.94 avg rating — 941 ratings — published 1988 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics 3.76 avg rating — 901 ratings — published 1994 — 10 editions	My rating:
	All the Trouble in the World 3.85 avg rating — 680 ratings — published 1994 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Give War a Chance: Eyewitness Accounts of Mankind's Struggle Against Tyranny, Injustice, and Alcohol-Free Beer by P.J. O'Rourke, Laura Hammond Hough (Designed by) 3.80 avg rating — 623 ratings — 12 editions	My rating:
	On The Wealth of Nations 3.50 avg rating — 533 ratings — published 2006 — 20 editions	My rating:
	Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut 3.58 avg rating — 529 ratings — published 1995 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People 3.71 avg rating — 415 ratings — published 1983 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism 3.48 avg rating — 442 ratings — published 2004 — 15 editions	My rating:
	Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of P.J. O'Rourke 3.78 avg rating — 401 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by P.J. O'Rourke

“Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

tags: books , good-impressions

190 people liked it

“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

46 people liked it

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

38 people liked it

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