When turning the other cheek just won't do, try fighting back with the cantankerous remarks of some of the crustiest, grouchiest, and cleverest curmudgeons of all time. Profiles of three world-class wordsmiths--Alexander Woollcott, Oscar Wilde, and Robert Benchley--plus interviews with a variety of caustic commentators make this a collection of barbed remarks second to none.
More than 1,000 outrageously irreverent quotations, anecdotes, and interviews on a vast array of subjects, from an illustrious list of world class grouches. “If you can’t say anything good about someone, sit right here by me.”—Alice Roosevelt Longworth
In Advice to Writers, Jon Winokur, author of the bestselling The Portable Curmudgeon, gathers the counsel of more than four hundred celebrated authors in a treasury on the world of writing. Here are literary lions on everything from the passive voice to promotion and publicity: James Baldwin on the practiced illusion of effortless prose, Isaac Asimov on the despotic tendencies of editors, John Cheever on the perils of drink, Ivan Turgenev on matrimony and the Muse. Here, too, are the secrets behind the sleight-of-hand practiced by artists from Aristotle to Rita Mae Brown. Sagacious, inspiring, and entertaining, Advice to Writers is an essential volume for the writer in every reader.
The revered actor and quintessential self-made man recalls "trying to decipher" William Wyler with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, breaking Doris Day's ribs, having a "heart-to-heart and eyeball-to-eyeball" with Steve McQueen, being "a card-carrying liberal--and proud of it," and much more.
From the author of The Portable Curmudgeon, a delicious, witty, irreverent A to Z guide to the tics, twitches and safety-valves that characterize our twisted, neurotic modern world. We live in an Age of Anxiety. The events of modern life have overwhelmed the average homo sapiens until getting from Point A to Point B without being overcome by neuroses is a practical impossibility. Enter: the comic safety valve. Jon Winokur's Encyclopedia Neurotica is a delightful garden of the ills that beset modern man. Entries include excerpts from both popular and arcane published works, as well as original definitions, essential terms and the occasional cutting-edge concept, such as "celebriphilia, the pathological desire to sleep with a celebrity, suffered chiefly by groupies." Some samples from Encyclopedia Neurotica: --Abyss, the: the yawning unfathomable chasm of existential terror --Acquired Situational Narcissism: a condition characterized by grandiosity, lack of empathy, rage, isolation and substance abuse; mainly afflicts celebrities, who tend to be surrounded by enablers --Denial: unconscious defense mechanism that numbs anxiety by refusing to acknowledge unpleasant realities --Manic Run: prolonged state of optimism, excitement and hyperactivity experienced as part of bipolar disorder
For those starting out in their careers—and those who wish to advance more quickly—this is a delightfully fussy guide to the hidden rules of the road in the workplace and in life. As bestselling author and social historian Charles Murray explains, at senior levels of an organization there are curmudgeons everywhere, judging your every move. Yet it is their good opinion you need to win if you hope to get ahead. Among the curmudgeon’s day-to-day tips for the workplace: • Excise the word “like” from your spoken English • Don’t suck up • Stop “reaching out” and “sharing” • Rid yourself of piercings, tattoos, and weird hair colors • Make strong language count His larger career advice includes: • What to do if you have a bad boss • Coming to grips with the difference between being nice and being good • How to write when you don’t know what to say • Being judgmental (it’s good, and you don’t have a choice anyway) And on the great topics of life, the curmudgeon urges us to leave home no matter what, get real jobs (not internships), put ourselves in scary situations, and watch Groundhog Day repeatedly (he’ll explain). Witty, wise, and pulling no punches, The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead is an indispensable sourcebook for living an adult life.
Here at last is a guide to winning at golf that tells you how to dominate your opponents – not by out-playing them, but by out-thinking them. Golf is a complex and demanding game, so fickle and perverse, that even its masters never truly master it. But, Jon Winokur assures us in this entertaining and eminently practical manual, that if you can’t play golf consistently well, you can at least win consistently. With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Winokur provides various tried and true gamesmanship techniques with which to gain the advantage, from the most subtle psychological warfare to the carefully stifled sneeze. Filled with wry humour, peppered with tips, quotes, and anecdotes from golf’s greats, and illustrated throughout, this book is indispensable for anyone whose priority is to win ... at whatever cost!
In But Enough About Me, legendary film actor and Hollywood superstar Burt Reynolds recalls the people who shaped his life and career, for better or for worse. From Robert Altman, Cary Grant, Clint Eastwood and Robert Mitchum to Bette Davis, Marlon Brando, Woody Allen and Kirsty Alley, Burt pays homage to those he loves and respected, acknowledges those who've stayed loyal, and calls out the assholes he can't forgive. Recalling his life and career spanning over 50 glorious years, the legendary actor gives special attention to the two great loves of his life, Dinah Shore and Sally Field, his son, Quinton, as well as to the countless people who got in his way on his journey to Hollywood domination. With chapters on his early childhood, how he discovered acting, played poker with Frank Sinatra, received directing advice from Orson Welles, his golden years in Hollywood, his comeback in the late 1990s, and how his life and art led him to found the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theatre, But Enough About Me is a gripping and eye-opening story of one of cinema's true greats.
