Wry Martinis.

XXIV, 294 S. Umschlag leicht berieben, sonst gutes Exemplar. - People who read magazines backward will agree with John Berendt and David Halberstam. Buckley's frequent New Yorker contributions to the back-page "Shouts and Murmurs" column have been a regular source of hilarity: The Pope's appearance on Oprah to promote his book; letters of recommendation for O. f. Simpson's New York condo application; a review of Peter Benchley's new book, Gills, about a vengeful Dolly Varden trout; the starship Enterprise's most daring and difficult assignment- programming its VCR; and several dozen other delightful New Yorker parodies, satires, and pastiches are all collected here. Buckley also writes for other magazines. Over the years he has written memorable pieces for such publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The New Republic, Condé Nast Traveler, Esquire, and many others. These pieces are also included-at no extra charge. He has occasionally been the source of controversy, as when he perpetrated a highly efficient and successful hoax claiming that the Kremlin was about to auction off the embalmed remains of Lenin in order to raise hard currency. A review he wrote of one of Tom Clancy's novels so infuriated the novelist that he launched fax cruise missiles at Buckley-providing Buckley with ammunition for his counter-strike. When not annoying the Russian Interior Ministry or megaselling thriller writers, Buckley embarks on unusual adventures of his own: steaming up the Amazon in the company of billionaires and deposed European royalty, spelunking in Mayan caves, landing on the deck of the U.S.S. Nimitz, and hurtling about the wild blue yonder with the Thunderbirds (see "How I Went Nine Gs in an F-16 and Only Threw Up Five Times"). These, too, are included- but you must act now. ISBN 9780679452331