“Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you’re half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up your nose and a teenage lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you’re going a hundred miles an hour down a suburban side street.” That’s how Driving Like Crazy begins and if you don’t like that, stop reading now. O’Rourke writes about his 30 years of driving cars and motorcycles. Some of this book reads like Dave Barry on speed, but I like that. I also liked the adventures O’Rourke relates of racing in the Baja with Mike Nesmith (yes, the former Monkee). Driving Like Crazy is a homage to a world that swiftly slipping away. O’Rourke loves cars and if you love them too, you’ll love this book. GRADE: B+.
I got this yesterday. After reading about it in Road & Track magazine I had to have it. I’ve read many of these pieces before, but a whole collection of his auto columns and articles is too good to pass up. I’ll read it very soon, as soon as I finish the Maigret novel I’m on now.
People need to understand that O’Rourke, once writer for NATIONAL LAMPOON, is a humorist and has admitted on more than one occasion that he sometimes “embellishes” in these pieces. But they are mostly true and his writing is very entertaining indeed.
Some of the pieces in this collection are uneven, but I enjoyed most of them. You’re right, at times, O’Rourke was channeling Hunter S. Thompson.
Do you use the normal trackbacks or you use any specialised plugins? I been getting a lot of trackbacks for my sites from unrelated websites so just wondering
Nope, just the plain vanilla WORDPRESS.
I’m just about finished with the Baja section, and I’m really enjoying this book. The first piece was forgettable and over-the-top, but the rest has been great.
DRIVING LIKE CRAZY is uneven, but when O’Rourke is good, he’s really really good. And funny!