A CITIZEN'S BLOG

We all have interests outside of baseball and the Phillies (and no, I’m not talking about the Eagles). I read a lot (or at least I used to): no surprise I had few friends in high school, because I was the kid that sat there and read for hours and hours and hours.

Today I don’t as much, in part because I read things all day in law school and studying for the bar, and in part because I don’t have the time anymore to devote to sitting down and actually bothering to flip open a book. There are a few writers I consider to be worth my time: Christopher Buckley is one whose every book is a joy to read.

Buckley, the son conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, is a terrific writer of satirical novels about the tobacco industry (Thank You For Smoking), the alien-abduction community (Little Green Men), and political memoirs (The White House Mess). He just got done writing Florence of Arabia, a satirical novel about the Middle East, not exactly a subject of humor these days ... I’ve read the excerpts in The Atlantic Monthly (Part I here, Part II here), and they are hilarious. Buckley has a wryly cynical writing style that locks onto people pompous and self-important and blows them out of the water.

I've honestly never laughed as hard as when I read Thank You For Smoking for the first time and got to the part when the villians attempted to kill the hero, a tobacco lobbyist, by putting nicotene patches on his body. (Read the book.)

Check out the excerpts or buy the book. I will when I get a chance. (Or money.)