I first encountered P.J. O’Rourke’s writings as a teenager in a copy of Modern Manners my father encouraged me to buy while we were browsing the secondhand offerings of an offbeat little bookstore (looking back, I can’t imagine who in their right mind would part with such a book). “You should get that, he’s funny,” dad said. That evening, I read some G-rated excerpts to my traditionalist parents, who laughed out loud.
