Holidays in Hell: In Which Our Intrepid Reporter Travels to the World's Worst Places and Asks, "What's Funny About This" (O'Rourke, P. J.)
No doubt about it: P. J. O'Rourke has a bizarre sense of fun.  "What I've ... been," he writes in his introduction toHolidays in Hell"is a Trouble Tourist--going to see  insurrections, stupidities, political crises, civil disturbances and  other human folly because ... because it's fun." Forget Hawaii or  the Poconos--O'Rourke gets his jollies in places like war-torn Lebanon where he is greeted at the border by a gun barrel in his face,  or Seoul, just in time for election-day violence. Wherever he goes,  however, O'Rourke takes his quirky sense of humor, laser eye for  detail, and artful way with words: a Philippine army officer is  "powerful-looking in a short, compressed way, like an attack  hamster," and the Syrian army is described as having "dozens  of silly hats, mostly berets in yellow, orange and shocking pink, but also tiny pillbox chapeaux.... The paratroopers wear shiny gold jumpsuits and crack commando units have skin-tight fatigues in a  camouflage pattern of violet, peach, flesh tone and vermilion on a  background of vivid purple. This must give excellent protective  coloration in, say, a room full of Palm Beach divorcees in Lily  Pulitzer dresses."O'Rourke's flip, sarcastic style isn't for everyone, of course; the  concept that anyone could find sightseeing in the Beirut or El Salvador  of the 1980sfunmight prove offensive to more than a few  readers right off the bat. But love him or hate him, P. J. O'Rourke  knows how to tell a good story, and if you like your travel writing  laced with more than a little cynicism,Holidays in Hellcould  be just the book you've been looking for.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.