An indispensible guide to southernness from revered humorist and unapologetic curmudgeon Roy Blount Jr.When a simple-talking, peanut-warehousing, grit-eating Southern Baptist Cracker got himself nominated for president of the United States in 1976, it set Roy Blount Jr. to thinking—about the South, about southerners, and about southernness. The result is a collection of savagely funny and insightful takes on redneck heaven, whiskey, blood, possums, and a great numbe...

A hilarious exploration of male-female communication and other momentous topicsMen don't tell women things for various reasons.1. The things in question may not be true.2. It is better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a pig than to open it and oink.3. There is a certain pleasure in holding certain considerations close to the chest.4. When there is a t...

From the heart of the American South to the African bush, Dispatches from the Gilded Age is a dazzling collection of essays from Julia Reed, one of America's most engaging and insightful chroniclers.Reed's sharp eye and wit illuminate the high and low of a spectacular era, from her first byline covering the shooting of Dr. Herman Tarnower by headmistress Jean Harris, to profiles of luminaries like Andre Leon Talley, Sister Helen Prejean, President George an...

Nearly eighty years after its release, the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup remains one of the most influential pieces of political satire in history. In Hail, Hail, Euphoria!, bestselling author Roy Blount Jr. tells the history and making of Duck Soup, examining the comedic genius of the Marx Brothers in their finest hour and nine minutes.In Duck Soup, a slim, agile, quick-witted, self-assured young man is summoned to save a nation from financial ru...

"As if ripped on Old Crow fortified with Adderall, Blount chases letters, words and phrases to their origins, and when stumped he hypothesizes." — The New York TimesDid you know that both mammal and matter derive from baby talk? Have you noticed how wince makes you wince? Ever wonder why so many h-words have to do with breath?Roy Blount Jr. certainly has, and after forty years of making a living using wor...

Getting back to basic truths that we have lost sight of through no fault of my own. A humorous collection of newspaper columns including "I Don't Eat Dirt Personally," "How to Walk in New York," "Filofax Fever," and other reflections on American life.

Another entertaining look at language from the humorist author of Alphabet Juice and panelist on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me ."Blount's selection of words is particularly 'sonicky' and is accompanied by amusing facts and anecdotes and crazy stories that show the peculiarities of etymology and definitions and the deep and abiding beauty of words. Writers and readers ...

Thirtieth Anniversary EditionAny number of writers could spend an entire season with an NFL team, from the first day of training camp until the last pick of the draft, and come up with an interesting book. But only Roy Blount Jr. could capture the pain, the joy, the fears, the humor—in short, the heart—of a championship team. In 1973, the Pittsburgh Steelers were super, but missed the bowl. Blount's portrait of a team poised to dominate the NFL for more than a decade recounts the gridiron ...

In the book his laughing and loving readers have been waiting for, our generation's master of full-hearted humor lays open the soul of his life story.Roy Blount Jr.--Georgia boy turned New York wit, lover of baseball and interesting women, bumbling adventurer, literary lion, salty-limerick virtuoso and impassioned father--journeys into the past and his psyche (also all the way to China, sixty feet underwater and to various Manhattan hot spots) in search of the answers to three ridd...

Our best-laid plans will yield to fate.And we will say, "We lived. We ate."Roy Blount Jr. is one of America's most cherished comic writers. He's been compared to Mark Twain and James Thurber, and his books have been called everything from "a work of art" (Robert W. Creamer, The New York Times Book Review) to "a book to read till it falls apart" ( Newsweek). Now, in Save Room for Pie, he applies his much-praised wit and ch...

Who lived at the P.O. in China Grove, Mississippi? What does NASCAR stand for? Where is the Redneck Riviera? When is Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday? What are Yellow Mama and Old Sparky? Entertaining, fun, and educational, this quiz book covers every aspect of southern culture from alligators to melungeons to zydeco. More than 800 questions — most drawn from the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture — cover literature, music, entertainment, history, politics, the law, sports and recr...

“Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street’s in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first saw a naked woman with the lights on. . . . Every time I go to New Orleans I am startled by something.”So writes Roy Blount Jr. in this exuberant, character-filled saunter through a place he has l...