The Husband and I have been watching a lot of John Oliver as of late. His show, Last Week Tonight, is pure brilliance and inspired this list. This month, I give you a list of books about political satire.
Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics
Anonymous
Thank You For Smoking
Christopher Buckley
Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies–in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of the original Puff Daddy?
Absurdistan
Gary Shteyngart
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost. Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny
Cintra Wilson
In this inventive and biting satire, acclaimed novelist and cultural critic Cintra Wilson reimagines America's Manifest Destiny as helmed by Caligula, the only leader in world history capable of turning our floundering democracy into a fully functioning-and totally fun-tyranny, both here and abroad. With Caligula running the show, America will finally be able to achieve what the founding fathers really wanted, but never had the nerve to admit. Like, how to achieve the guilt-free looting of natural resources for the sake of immediate gratification; declare war on abstract concepts (drugs, terror, the ocean) for the sake of imperial expansion; utilize propaganda, psychological operations, and other prisoner-of-war techniques to create a sense of learned helplessness in the citizenry, gain their utterly terrified trust and obedience-and leave them begging for more; rape, pillage, and loot-both here and abroad-with impunity. Wilson also traces the historical arc of Caligula's life and not-so-hard times, from his privileged childhood in Syria to his ascent to power to his eventual takedown by the hands of an angry populace, to point out the unsettling parallels between his own extravagant reign and the avariciousness of other administrations, which helped usher in a new golden age of unlimited executive power. Part political parable, part cautionary tale, Caligula for President is an ingenious and hilarious send-up of the current state of our Union by one of this generation's sharpest satirists.
Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life and Times
James Finn Garner
In this thin book Garner proposes to create "meaningful literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the influence of its flawed cultural past." The results are extremely funny. Updated to account for modern political sensibilities, these revisionist folktales reflect wit and an engaging knack for irony. In "Little Red Riding Hood," Grandma exacts her feminist revenge on the woodchopper, who "assumes that womyn and wolves can't solve their own problems without a man's help." In "The Frog Prince," the princess, now an "eco-feminist warrior," discovers that her dream frog is not a prince, but a real-estate developer. In other tales, Rapunzel becomes a self-reliant coffee-house singer and the Three Little Pigs armed guerrillas, while cultural imperialists such as The Big Bad Wolf and Goldilocks get what has been coming to them for centuries. The author strikes just the right tone here: clever, with more than a touch of self-awareness. And while each of these tales is short and easily digestible, in this case quickly read does not equal quickly forgotten. After one finishes this collection, "happily ever after" will never seem quite the same.
Wag the Dog
Larry Beinhart
Once upon a time there was a mean, dying GOP chairman who had a brilliant scheme to assure that his man would retain the office of president of the United States of America. And the only man who could pull off this elaborate plan was a celebrated Hollywood director. Add to the mix a left-coast gumshoe named Broz who is trapped among cover-ups, undercover work, and his own morality, a cast of bicoastal desperate characters, and the stage is set for a powerful D.C./L.A. production.
Other Satire Titles
America (The Book) - The Daily Show
The Book of General Ignorance - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
Election - Tom Perrotta
The Final Addiction - Richard Condon
I Am America (And So Can You!) - The Colbert Report
The Last Magazine - Michael Hastings
Anonymous
A brilliant
and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American politics,
Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic story with characters and
events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures. When a former
congressional aide becomes part of the staff of the governor of a small
Southern state, he watches in horror, admiration, and amazement, as the
governor mixes calculation and sincerity in his not-so-above-board
campaign for the presidency. A
brilliant and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American
politics, Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic story with
characters and events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures.
When a former congressional aide becomes part of the staff of the
governor of a small Southern state, he watches in horror, admiration,
and amazement, as the governor mixes calculation and sincerity in his
not-so-above-board campaign for the presidency.
Thank You For SmokingChristopher Buckley
Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He’s a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies–in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He’s so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he’s become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of the original Puff Daddy?
Gary Shteyngart
Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost. Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.
Cintra Wilson
In this inventive and biting satire, acclaimed novelist and cultural critic Cintra Wilson reimagines America's Manifest Destiny as helmed by Caligula, the only leader in world history capable of turning our floundering democracy into a fully functioning-and totally fun-tyranny, both here and abroad. With Caligula running the show, America will finally be able to achieve what the founding fathers really wanted, but never had the nerve to admit. Like, how to achieve the guilt-free looting of natural resources for the sake of immediate gratification; declare war on abstract concepts (drugs, terror, the ocean) for the sake of imperial expansion; utilize propaganda, psychological operations, and other prisoner-of-war techniques to create a sense of learned helplessness in the citizenry, gain their utterly terrified trust and obedience-and leave them begging for more; rape, pillage, and loot-both here and abroad-with impunity. Wilson also traces the historical arc of Caligula's life and not-so-hard times, from his privileged childhood in Syria to his ascent to power to his eventual takedown by the hands of an angry populace, to point out the unsettling parallels between his own extravagant reign and the avariciousness of other administrations, which helped usher in a new golden age of unlimited executive power. Part political parable, part cautionary tale, Caligula for President is an ingenious and hilarious send-up of the current state of our Union by one of this generation's sharpest satirists.
James Finn Garner
In this thin book Garner proposes to create "meaningful literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the influence of its flawed cultural past." The results are extremely funny. Updated to account for modern political sensibilities, these revisionist folktales reflect wit and an engaging knack for irony. In "Little Red Riding Hood," Grandma exacts her feminist revenge on the woodchopper, who "assumes that womyn and wolves can't solve their own problems without a man's help." In "The Frog Prince," the princess, now an "eco-feminist warrior," discovers that her dream frog is not a prince, but a real-estate developer. In other tales, Rapunzel becomes a self-reliant coffee-house singer and the Three Little Pigs armed guerrillas, while cultural imperialists such as The Big Bad Wolf and Goldilocks get what has been coming to them for centuries. The author strikes just the right tone here: clever, with more than a touch of self-awareness. And while each of these tales is short and easily digestible, in this case quickly read does not equal quickly forgotten. After one finishes this collection, "happily ever after" will never seem quite the same.
Wag the Dog
Larry Beinhart
Once upon a time there was a mean, dying GOP chairman who had a brilliant scheme to assure that his man would retain the office of president of the United States of America. And the only man who could pull off this elaborate plan was a celebrated Hollywood director. Add to the mix a left-coast gumshoe named Broz who is trapped among cover-ups, undercover work, and his own morality, a cast of bicoastal desperate characters, and the stage is set for a powerful D.C./L.A. production.
Other Satire Titles
America (The Book) - The Daily Show
The Book of General Ignorance - John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
Election - Tom Perrotta
The Final Addiction - Richard Condon
I Am America (And So Can You!) - The Colbert Report
The Last Magazine - Michael Hastings
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