Rating: 
Summary: It should have worked
Review: But it didn't. The conceit just did not cohere. The passion, the clarity, the wit were all on the back burner. Even the great P. J., everyone's favorite right-wing fascist (i.e. non-Democrat), has his off days and this was one of them. All is not lost, however. I recently finished a long piece of his about Egypt which was in top form so I am confident in his next book he will be back in his game. But until then . . . oh, well.
Rating:
Summary: OK for O'Rourke fans, not for novices.
Review: CEO of the Sofa is an uneven book. It's basically a collection of some of P.J.'s writings on everything from Hillary Clinton to driving to being a new father. It is linked together in an homage to Holmes' "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" as a series of diatribes P.J. unleashes on the Democrats next door, his assistant, his wife, his daughter, his godson and the baby sitter (usually as his alter ego, the Political Nut). I can't, in good faith, recommend this book to non-P.J. fans. The wit is there but the book lacks the coherence, factual analysis and dogged persistence on a subject that characterize his best books - Eat the Rich, Parliament of Whores and All the Trouble in the World. Even his previous collections - Vacations in Hell, Give War a Chance and Age and Guile - had related articles sandwiched together in sections. This just sounds like someone rambling on and on from topic to topic with no rhyme or reason. If you're not familiar with O'Rouke, I recommend the above-mentioned books, which are excellent. Some of the stuff in the book is very good. Some of it isn't. His open letter to Democrats, his discussion of how being a parent changed his outlook, his (well-deserved) lambasting of Hillary and his analysis of the impeachement scandal in which no side is spared his sharp tongue, are top notch. But the CEO linkages annoyed me. Moreover, he took his old articles and pasted in asides to his (fictional) audience. The pasting is obvious and the asides are unnecessary and distracting. If he'd just done this as a coherent collection of his writings, it would probably be a 3.5-4 star book. As it is, it's 3-3.5 stars for PJ fans, probably less for novices.
Rating:
Summary: A contractual obligation, PJ?
Review: Even though I don't agree with his politics, I've always enjoyed PJ O'Rourke's writing. He's funnier than most other writers, and can turn a memorable phrase better than anyone else. So I looked forward to this book with great anticipation ... and I was disappointed. It looks like PJ didn't write this because he was inspired by any topic, other than getting a paycheck. So he took a bunch of things he wrote for magazines, and then linked them together with a sort of narrative. There are flashes of PJ's brilliance here and there, but it's a very uneven book all in all. If you like PJ, wait until this is out in paperback or you can find it remaindered.
Rating:
Summary: Stick to the plot PJ
Review: I am a big PJ O'Rourke fan, but he is at his best when writing about the idiocies of political systems and economies around the world. He is not at his best making us chuckle over his domestic arrangements. Still, this has plenty of good stuff. I found his comparisoms of Venice and the Venetian Hotel funny and surprisingly informative. Not his best, but add to the collection.
Rating: 
Summary: P.J.'s losing it...
Review: I generally rate the worth of a P.J. O'Rourke book by the number of times I hoot out in laughter. As compared to past works such as The Bachelor's Home Companion or Parliament of Whores, where the hoot-to-page ratio was about 1:3, this one was about 1:75. I hate to say it, but P.J.'s getting old. This book is soaking-wet with dreary essays about how tough it is for him to be married, married with children, etc., mixed -- in sort of a literary slurry -- with unpublished essays and old works from Forbes FYI, Rolling Stone, etc. Judging from his writing, married life hasn't been be kind to P.J.'s wit. This is troubling; even Hunter S. Thompson wrote some of his best gonzo work when he was married. Moreover, now that he is a Father, P.J. appears to be losing the strong libertarian streak that endeared him to millions of crazy young GOP types (like myself). In CEO, he engages in a rambling discourse in which he seems to be reversing his age-old position favoring the decriminalization of drugs, particularly marijuana. Some of his essays have strength, and I did appreciate his use of the style of Oliver Wendell Holmes' heretofore-forgotten tome The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table ... but, in my opinion, it simply was't enough to save this book. If you're a die-hard P.J. fan like myself, buy it -- but if you're looking to this one as an introduction to his work, you will be sorely disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Time for a new king of political humor.
Review: I had a bad feeling about P.J.'s prospects when I picked up an issue of Forbes FYI last year and found that Andrew Ferguson's contribution to the magazine was funnier than his. Unfortunately, his boring take on "The Ten Commandments Version 2.0" is included in this book. The book's highlight is O'Rourke's riotous essay on driving instruction and if you're a diehard fan, you'll want the book just for that. His evisceration of an academic task force's namby-pamby "Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing" is classic. And he ingeniously morphs a child-rearing story into a parable on sexual harassment. However, P.J. is at his best when he's mixing it up with real people, doing ground-level reporting. He just doesn't do as much of that as he used to, preferring instead to weave semi-imaginary characters into the narrative. As he becomes more of a homebody, his writing inevitably suffers. Who says women are the only people who have to choose between career and family? So who will claim O'Rourke's mantle? Jonah Goldberg is funny but doesn't do much reporting. My money is on the hilarious Weekly Standard journalist Matt Labash.
Rating: 
Summary: The CEO SUX
Review: I remember what a delight 'Parliment of Whores' was - but since that time each subsequent book has been less a treat. This latest is my last. Few good topics, lousy attempts at humor and enough pointless zingers at Bill & Hillary Clinton to make the whole thing frustratingly boring. Neither political commentary nor humor is found between these covers - save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: O'Rourke Gets Better With Age
Review: I resisted this title for months, thinking I'd have no interest in a parenting tome, but don't repeat my mistake by judging this book by its cover! I've been a PJ fan since his NatLamp days in the 70s. Even when my politics were much different from his, I've always appreciated his brilliant wit. This book is actually a collection of some of PJs recent magazine articles (none of which I had previously seen) and some unpublished bits, glued together with a faux-family-and-hired-help-narrative thread, which actually works quite well. Here we get hilarious advice on how to choose vehicles for minimum winter utility, wry glimpses of the bureaucratic chaos at the UN, raw bludgeoning of Bill Clinton, and a surprising amount of digs at PJ's own conservative compatriots. PJ, maybe the top satirist of our age, draws much humor from his own love of drink, and it continues to amaze and amuse, as in his Blind [Drunk] Wine Tasting chapter. As with most of PJ's work, there's a gut-buster on nearly every page. Leave your prejudices behind, and embrace his for a few hours, and your sides will ache, guaranteed!
Rating:
Summary: Complete Drivel
Review: I was so disappointed from such a good writer, just pointless meanderings that reads as though it hasn't been edited. I suspect he received a fat advance from his publisher, did nothing and when forced to produce, slopped this out in a weekend. Save your money (or better still buy my copy from me)
Rating:
Summary: Skip the filler, re-read the good parts
Review: I'm a big PJ fan, and found much in 'The CEO of the Sofa' to enjoy. The problem is the good parts are embedded -- like a fly in amber -- in a conceit that never really clicked: PJ's homage to Oliver Wendell Holmes's 'The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.' What PJ has done here is create a semi-fictional community, and embedded his essays (à la Holmes) as monologues delivered to these family members, friends, neighbors, and his long-suffering assistant, Max. To his credit, PJ is very up-front about what he's trying to do. In the Acknowledgements, he writes, 'Holmes pulled this [conceit] off with so much wit and charm that there was only one way I could pay his idea the compliment it deserved. I swiped it.' Like a successful actor or director, PJ seems to be in a position to get his publisher to indulge his personal pet projects. Like Holmes, PJ is witty. Charming, I guess, is a matter of taste. I found it dull and contrived, and skipped over it as quickly as I could in order to get to the actual essays. The good news here is that most of the essays are PJ in fine form. Fans of 'Parliament of Whores' will savor his coverage of the United Nations Millennium Summit. And if you enjoyed his deconstruction of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter's tome way back when, you'll prize the way he tears apart 'Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing' and (especially) 'It Takes a Village.' ('The village is Washington. You are the child.'). Interestingly, the parts I found most funny were those that involved, or were suggested by, Christopher Buckley. The Blind (Drunk) Wine Taste Test and the section titled 'Who the F___ Are They?' are, for pure humor writing, some of the best things in the book. It was Christopher Buckley who coined the equation PJ = SJ [Perelman] + LSD, but you won't find much of the latter in this book. The author of the classic 'How to Drive Fast on Drugs while Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink' now finds himself writing about childcare, the stock market, and the vicissitudes of home computers. These are some of the sections I skimmed over, as PJ veered terrifyingly close to (Lord have mercy) Andy Rooney-dom. Despite those scares, though, there is still great material here. I found the occasional recycled joke, but there are also many true O'Rourkean one-liners to enjoy ('What a feckless, timid, timeserving [Republican] revolution that was in 1994, as if the sans culottes had stormed the Bastille to get themselves jobs as prison guards.' [p. 102]). So ... good try on the Holmes thing, PJ. It wasn't my cup of tea, but *de gustibus ...*. The rest is still worth the trip.
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