Nice political think piece for any political animal’s library. Not a hard read, a little too real given the state of politics in these days. It’s a worthy read regardless

P.j.ORourke never fails to entertain give me ideas to think about.This book precovid election time is fun informative a book I enjoyed.#netgalley#groveatlantic.

A very contemporary and current political think piece. Not my style and very particular perspective so didn’t feel like it was informative. That said I think people like the author and will read it.

PJ is conflicted

PJ O'Rourke has a problem. As a self-styled libertarian he can't possibly side with the Democrats on much of anything, but he absolutely despises Mr. Trump. It's hard position to be in and he actually does not do it very well.

Some of the essays are funny enough, but they do not make the libertarian argument very strongly because backing away from "liberal" stuff like public schools, bumps you right into the odious Mrs. DeVos. Defending firm immigration rules brings you to babies ripped from their mothers' arms and children in cages.

Mr. O'Rourke will do better against Mr. Biden.

A collection of short pieces by popular humorist O'Rourke that revolve around the pre-COVID period of 2020, America, the government, and that year's Presidental election. Those ;long familiar with the author's work may find it a but repetitive, but it's good fun nonetheless.

Even if I don't agree with some of the analysis of the writer I found this book highly entertaining and full of food for thought.
Mr O'Rourke can surely write an interesting book and his humor makes it highly enjoyable.
I will surely read other book by this author, this one is highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

We live in an increasingly polarized age. Television talking head, political pundits, athletes, movie stars, everyone seems to be yelling to move to the left or move to the right like some perverse square dance from hell. In the middle of all of this comes A Cry From The Far Middle. This cry is brought to us by none other than satirist extraordinaire, P. J. O’Rourke. Author of such fun works as Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards and The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again, O’Rourke is back to start a movement towards each other instead of away from each other.

In his introduction he tells us that “America is in need of some explaining, especially at the moment. That the country is a mess is the one thing the country agrees on. And even about this we differ. Half the nation seems to be saying, “We don’t know what’s wrong with America, but we can fix it,” while the other half says, “There’s nothing wrong with America, and we can fix that.” This does not bode well for the nation. As he points out this is nothing new. Strife and bickering are nothing new. They are built into the fabric of the US. From the founding of the first British colonies there was strife. To begin with there was strife with the local population who didn’t understand that it was the White Man’s Burden to deprive natives of their food, homes, and land. O’Rourke provides a succinct and darkly humorous reading of these early conflicts.

After setting the historical stage O’Rourke launches into the breakdown. The nation is in a conflict between “Heartlanders” and “Coastals.” These breakdowns are more about ideas than anything else. There are Coastals and Heartlanders on both sides of the aisle. “Harry Truman was a Heartlander. Steve Bannon makes Heartlander tornado noises but is in fact a Coastal hurricane of know-it-all, cared-stiff self-regard. Donald Trump is a Coastal pretending to be a Heartlander, covering his oh-so-Coastal real estate scammer face with a mask of drunk-in-a-bowling-alley Heartlander bigotry. Elizabeth Warren is a Heartlander. You can tell by the middle-American banality of all her “to-do” lists.” The problem in American “is not about Heartlanders being good and Coastals being evil. It’s about their respective ability to tell the difference.” This is at the heart of our conflict.

In his next chapter O’Rourke lays out the case that the best solution to the difference between the competing visions of the Heartlander and the Coastal is what today is known as Classical Liberalism. “Civil liberties. Free speech. Property rights. Rule of law. Representative democracy. Free enterprise. Free trade. These are the ideas of Classical Liberalism. Since 1776 the fortunate among us have been living in places where those ideas were embraced.” Sadly, both sides are abandoning this excellent middle ground in an effort to dominate the other side. The call of today’s society is not to find ways to get along, but rather find ways to dominate.

In this book O’Rourke brings both sides to task for playing the power politics game of trying to rule instead of trying to work together. First he takes on those calling for socialism. “Socialism is the politicization of everything. Socialism is when the stakes in the political battle are so high that they include control of the entire socioeconomic system. In this kind of boxing match it’s the referee—the sovereign people of the United States—who’s down for the count.” Later he takes on those calling for a new nationalism. “The difference between patriotism and nationalism is the difference between the love a father has for his family and the love a Godfather has for his family—the Bonanno family, the Colombo family, the Gambino family, the Genovese family, the Lucchese family . . . Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Nationalism is another business entirely, the kind of business Tessio talks to Tom Hagen about after Tessio’s betrayal of Michael Corleone. “Tell Michael it was just business.” Both world views are zero sum and both are seeking to draw people away from the middle and towards the extremes.

O’Rourke goes after the sacred cows in our society because he knows that in the end they make the best hamburgers. Some of what he says is jarring to consider. Some of it can be a little crazy. But all of it is shot through with his typical satire. If you want to read O’Rouke tearing apart social media, Donald Trump, the “democratic” socialists and the other unpleasant issues of our time then you have come to the right place. As always, O’Rourke takes his pen and skewers both right and left. He is an equal opportunity curmudgeon. It is always a pleasure and a joy to read O’Rourke. This was no exception. It made me laugh and wince at the absurdities around me in ways that only P. J. O’Rouke can do.

I have read every PJ O'Rourke and have always found him wonderful and this new book is no exception ,the topic itself though is a tad boring and I feel he lets Trump off pretty lightly ,mind you O'Rourke is a Republican.There are quite a few laughs and smiles to be had throughout and even a bit of information imparted especially for a non American who looks at the voting system over there as thinks ,what the ?Worth reading.

I have always liked O’Rourke’s essays. They are clever and amusing. I enjoy his essays but he seems to go on rants. Most of these essays are rants and rightly so based on the state of our country at this time. I’m sad. This book and our country is in a sad state. I didn’t particularly enjoy this book but it’s not O’Rourke’s fault. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

I love PJ O'Rourke's witticism and satirical edge that tend to expose the hypocrisy and absurdity of American political culture. A good reading will hopefully challenge your views and make you question why you hold the ideology that you do. This is very much a good thing. We all need to be more self-questioning. I looked forward to O'Rourke's new book, wondering what he might bring to the surface about this dumpster fire that is 2020.

He hit the nail well on the head. O'Rourke, as a libertarian (full disclosure: an ideology of which I do not subscribe), points out where true political beliefs have been hijacked in the name of self-righteousness and self-interest. Polarization has brought severe social and perhaps existential intellectual challenges (hence, the far middle). Obviously, he lays out his bias, but also shows where every belief system, including his, has been flipped upside down for the sake of political gain.

There are some sections that flow better than others. I feel some of the early chapters he comes across more as witty than having a strong message, maybe he had a lot of satirical comments to make but didn't know where to place them.

The main idea, though, is that O'Rourke will make you think and question yourself. This isn't bad at all, but I think in this time of hyperpartisanship, it takes courage. (Insert any "snowflake" or "politically correct" comments here) If you can't handle a little uneasiness, don't read it. If you want a challenge, that will make you squirm and smile at the same time, read on.

P.J. O'Rourke is one of the funniest observers of American political life in the last half century. Some of his books are classics. His newest title, A Cry from the Far Middle: Dispatches from a Divided Land, is a worthy addition to his oeuvre, but it does show signs of his growing old[er] and [more] curmudgeonly.

O'Rourke consistently has terrific insights as well a gift for pithy one-liners. The world of Twitter and 24 hour news has given so many opportunities to hear people's opinions that O'Rourke's statement sums up political discourse perfectly: "What this country needs is fewer people who know what this country needs." Amen! Fewer opinions and smaller government are consistent themes for O'Rourke. He leans hard toward libertarianism: "Our government is so bad at everything that it can't even do nothing right."

Underneath the snarkiness and one liners, O'Rourke consistently has great insights as he communicates political and economic ideas in memorable and entertaining ways. For example, his discussion on the political theory of rights as Getoutta here Rights and Gimmie Rights. Individual rights and free markets guide O'Rourke's thinking and, really who can argue with that?

(As a side note, O'Rourke won points with me with this line: "Some fast food is delicious by any standards-- In-N-Out Burger, Chick-fil-A, Whataburger." I'll forgive him for liking the sub-standard burgers at In-N-Out, and everyone loves CfA. But his familiarity with and praise for my hometown regional burger chain--which has no locations anywhere near O'Rourke's Massachussetts home-- demonstrates his great taste and wisdom.)

There aren't many writers who have such keen insights into current affairs and who are endlessly entertaining to read. A Cry from the Far Middle won't thrill hard-core Trump fans, but O'Rourke is an equal opportunity offender and a thoughtful interlocutor across the political spectrum.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

This is a quick and hilarious read about the state of the United States. The author uses humor to alert the reader to the issues we are facing, such as getting information on social media that is not true.

I gave A CRY FROM THE FAR MIDDLE a quick read-through, and was initially unimpressed and underwhelmed. What do you make of a book with a prologue that, essentially, says that pretty much everything in the book is dated and irrelevant?

This, I must stress, is not P.J's fault; it is the nature of how this kind of book is written - it's a collection of essays, written in 2018 and 2019, all of which sound dated in this year of calamity 2020. It's a relic of the Before Time. (In the Before Time, we would have said that it was a "September 10th" thing.)

So I read through it, and at first there were a lot of dad jokes. Like, just so many dad jokes. And I am, you know, a dad, and a practitioner* of the genre, and I thought there were too many dad jokes. There was a Shirley MacLaine joke, and those are almost as old as she is.** There was a very long and discursive history of the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies, which somehow managed to morph into a discussion of whether the nice lady who wrote "America the Beautiful" was a lesbian.

Disclaimer here. I am an unreserved fan of P.J. O'Rourke. I have nine or ten of his books on my bookshelf (although you'd never be able to tell because there's a picture of me on the shelf in front of them, with my twin daughters sitting on my lap, unwillingly wearing Dallas Cowboys t-shirts). I believe that HOLIDAYS IN HELL ought to be on the foreign service exam and that PARLIAMENT OF WHORES should be required reading for everyone in a hundred-mile radius of the Capitol.

This book is not as good as those.

Which is fine! It's hard to keep consistently writing satirical classics. It's hard to write one! And I think that it's wrong to say that it's because he's older, or that he's lost a few miles per hour on his fastball, but... maybe not that wrong?

So I was completely prepared to trash this book, to say that it wasn't worth it, to say that here was someone who was so far past his prime that he needed to be escorted to the front porch with a nice cool glass of lemonade, with maybe a little vodka in it. And then I ran across this bit, which I will quote, because it is JUST THAT GOOD and I missed it the first time I read it.

Now politics is at the point of promising everything to everybody. And everybody is disappointed. Everybody goes away empty-handed. Everybody feels cheated. Does this make us mad at our politicians? Yes. But mostly it makes us mad at each other, because politics is a zero-sum game the way freedom and free markets are not. Zero-sum games are not played for kicks and giggles. Zero-sum games are blood sports.


"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.”

Let me put kind of a gloss on this. The leading political theory out there is something called the "Overton Window," which basically says that any political goal that you want is impossible until it is. Same-sex marriage was politically impossible for decades, until it became the law in a few states, and got on the ballot in a few more, and eventually became the Constitutionally-protected law of the land. The various political pressure groups managed to move the Overton Window just enough to make it possible. And the Overton Window moves both ways--Prohibition was impossible until it wasn't, and Repeal wasn't impossible until it became so.

What that line of thinking leads to is that politicians, and the political pressure groups that back them, start believing that the things they want are possible, even when they are objectively impossible. The right-to-life groups want a national ban on abortion, and even if that would happen, there would still be abortions. The ultimate goal of gun control organizations is the eradication of firearms in America; good luck doing that. (Charles C. W. Cooke spells out what you'd have to do: https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/08/rant-second-amendment-repeal/)

What happens when politicians promise things that are not going to happen but are objectively impossible? (Mexico is not going to pay for the border wall, carbon dioxide will continue to be emitted, the Texas Rangers are not going to win the World Series in my lifetime.) What does that do to the national mood? What do you do with a zero-sum game when the rewards are zero?

A CRY FROM THE FAR MIDDLE is not as good as I want to be, not as funny as I'd like it to be, not as coherent as it needs to be. But there is a spark or two left among the kindling.



* Exemplia Gratia: Child A left a takeout container on the table that had once held chicken, and her mother said, "Why is the chicken container still on your side of the table," to which I replied, "Because it hasn't made it to the other side."

** In writing this sentence, I made the initial assumption that Shirley MacLaine had long since shuffled off this mortal coil, and was all ready to make a joke that she had reincarnated already and was a third-grader in Evansville, Indiana or something. But she is, as it turns out, still alive (age 86) as of this writing, which ruined the joke. Someone remind me in fifteen years or so and I'll make it then, even though it will be less funny.

I look forward to P.J. O'Rourke's appearances on Wait Wait, so I know that we are on the same side of the current political divide. This country is more fractured than ever, but he begins with the "lost" colony of Roanoke to make his point. Most people will know whether they are "coastal" or Midlander," but the quiz he has within will still make you smile. As will most of his "get off my lawn" essays.

I appreciate having had an opportunity to read and review this book. The appeal of this particular book was not evident to me, and if I cannot file a generally positive review I prefer simply to advise the publisher to that effect and file no review at all.

Clever writing negated by rants

I found several of O’Rourke’s essays clever and amusing. I enjoyed his writing style, humor and word usage. But these are the essays where he didn’t go on a rant, but reasonable and humorously made his point. The ones where he ranted were neither fun nor clever and I ended up skipping a lot of pages. I also had some issues with his partisanship. Overall the book was okay but I suspect that readers more aligned with O’Rourke’s politics will enjoy the book more than I did.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.

If you are already a fan of Mr. O'Rourke, you may enjoy his latest take on the status quo. However if you are a new reader or someone who doesn't remember the 60's or 70's, Please Keep Calm may feel like the grumblings of a 70+ year old about the good old days - from the drug culture of the 60's to the Bush presidency - and all that is wrong with world today.

There are some very funny one liners and asides, but for the most part (in his usual vein) this is a diatribe about the things Mr O'Rourke hates: Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez, Clinton (both), Socialists, Marxists, Communists, Russia, China, Bashir al-Assad, Putin, Ayn Rand (though I have agree with this one), Mark Zuckerberg, Mel Gibson, Marvel superheroes, Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez (he really hates AO-C), millennials, social media, smart technology....

Likes include Shylock from Merchant of Venice, Colin Power, Jeff Bezos, George H.W. Bush Charles Krauthammer, H.L. Mencken, old Volvos, fast food and strip malls.

If this reflects your world view, then no doubt you will enjoy Please Keep Calm.

I will give it 3 stars as the half way point to reflect the fact that over 50's might enjoy it and younger folk might not find it compelling reading.

Thanks to NetGallery for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.

This didn’t capture me though I’ve liked his earlier writing. Appreciate the chance to take a look though. Am sure his longtime fans will be pleased for a new one.

I don't know. I guess that I just do not "get" the author. I didn't find the book particularly informative nor funny. When I requested the book, I had perused reviews of the author's other books, and it appeared that he might be able to provide me a good read. Unfortunately, not.
Based on my own opinions, I do not think it's fair to penalize the author among his many fans. Best to just chalk this up to "it's just not for me". Therefore, I will not be leaving my review on any of my sites.
Good luck to the author.

This book is really scattered and I couldn't find what the author stood for - it just seemed like he was criticizing or making fun of everyone else. If it hung together more cogently, maybe it would've been funny but I just couldn't follow it.