How to really stink at golf

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P.J. O'Rourke

Mowing is tedious and can be avoided by wetting down the yard with a fine spray of #2 heating oil. Or during the winter months you can sprinkle rock salt on the whole thing.—from The Bachelor Home Companion. In the inimitable style that has made him one of America's most popular humorists, P.J. provides an essential guide to the practical business of living in the modern world and provides that "Camus had it all wrong about the myth of Sisyphus—it's not symbolic of life, just housekeeping."

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Laura Shapiro

"A beloved culinary historian's short takes on six famous women through the lens of food and cooking--what they ate and how their attitudes toward food offer surprising new insights into their lives. Everyone eats, and food touches on every aspect of our lives--social and cultural, personal and political. Yet most biographers pay little attention to people's attitudes toward food, as if the great and notable never bothered to think about what was on the plate in front of them. Once we ask how somebody relates to food, we find a whole world of different and provocative ways to understand her. Food stories can be as intimate and revealing as stories of love, work, or coming-of-age. Each of the six women in this entertaining group portrait was famous in her time, and most are still famous in ours; but until now, nobody has told their lives from the point of view of the kitchen and the table. It's a lively and unpredictable array of women; what they have in common with one another (and us) is a powerful relationship with food. They include Dorothy Wordsworth, whose food story transforms our picture of the life she shared with her famous poet brother; Rosa Lewis, the Edwardian-era Cockney caterer who cooked her way up the social ladder; Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady and rigorous protector of the worst cook in White House history; Eva Braun, Hitler's mistress, who challenges our warm associations of food, family, and table; Barbara Pym, whose witty books upend a host of stereotypes about postwar British cuisine; and Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan, whose commitment to "having it all" meant having almost nothing on the plate except a supersized portion of diet gelatin"--

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Trevor White

"Are all food critics corrupt? What's the trick for getting a table tonight in America's and Europe's most fashionable restaurants? Find out in 'Kitchen Con.' 'Waiter and customer have a lot in common. Each lingers under the delusion that lunch is on the way, neither has more than a passing interest in the other, and both are at the mercy of an ill-tempered thug with a white toque,' writes Trevor White in this hilarious account of life as a restaurant critic. 'Kitchen Con' is his passionate, intelligent exposé of the restaurant business, from the world's first restaurant after the French Revolution to today's most fashionable tables in London, Paris, and New York. With style and humor, White lifts the lid off the culinary cartel--owners, chefs, and critics--that cons diners around the globe. No one--not even the author himself--is spared in this riveting account of life at the heart of the restaurant racket."--From publisher description.

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Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

This New York Times bestseller is the hilarious philosophy course everyone wishes they'd had in schoolOutrageously funny, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar . . . has been a breakout bestseller ever since authors—and born vaudevillians—Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein did their schtick on NPR's Weekend Edition. Lively, original, and powerfully informative, Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar . . . is a not-so-reverent crash course through the great philosophical thinkers and traditions, from Existentialism (What do Hegel and Bette Midler have in common?) to Logic (Sherlock Holmes never deduced anything). Philosophy 101 for those who like to take the heavy stuff lightly, this is a joy to read—and finally, it all makes sense!