Their First Consistently Brilliant Album Finds Cocker'S Paranoid Pokings Reaching Darker Corners Than Ever. Violin Soaked Ballads Like 'Don'T You Want Me Anymore' Grapple With The Thumping, Deformed Dance Of 'My Legendary Girlfriend' And 'Death Iii'. Slipcase.

War Reporting for Cowards : Between Iraq and a Hard Place

History

Ayres, Chris

World

John Murray

The hilariously intrepid young author of War Reporting for Cowards returns from Iraq only to dive head-first into another absurd, terrifying world: the American leisure class. Like Hunter Thompson crossed with one of David Brooks’s bobos in paradise, Ayres embeds himself in LA’s liesuretocracy”: an over-the-top world of caviar facials, billionaire charity balls, souped-up SUVs, and monster home loans . . . not to mention $1,000-a-night brothels and million-dollar poker tournaments. Ayres’s highly leveraged lifestyle lands him a surreal night with a supermodel, a date at Michael Jackson’s birthday party in Neverland Ranch (Ayres bribes the organizers five grand to get in), and a wife courtesy of Craigslist. But disaster is never far away. In the book’s brutal final section, Ayres is forced to confront the excesses of his generation at a scene of apocalyptic destruction: the Katrina-ravaged South. Told with a blend of offbeat irreverence, genuine pathos, and incisive social commentary, Death by Leisure is a savage and darkly humorous odyssey that taps directly into the contemporary psyche.

Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Death by Leisure

Hodder Murray

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

GROVE PRESS

Chris Ayres is a small-town boy, a hypochondriac, and a neat freak with an anxiety disorder. Not exactly the picture of a war correspondent. But when his boss asks him if he would like to go to Iraq, he doesn't have the guts to say no. After signing a 1 million dollar life-insurance policy, studying a tutorial on repairing severed limbs, and spending 20 thousand dollars in camping gear (only to find out that his bright yellow tent makes him a sitting duck), Ayres is embedded with a battalion of gung ho Marines who either shun him or threaten him when he files an unfavorable story. As time goes on, though, he begins to understand them (and his inexplicably enthusiastic fellow war reporters) more and more: Each night of terrifying combat brings, in the morning, something more visceral than he has ever experienced — the thrill of having won a fight for survival. In the tradition of MASH, Catch-22, and other classics in which irreverence springs from life in extremis, War Reporting for Cowards tells the story of Iraq in a way that is extraordinarily honest, heartfelt, and bitterly hilarious.

War Reporting for Cowards

Leaders & Notable People

For Chris Ayres, the young British journalist whose first book, War Reporting for Cowards, was celebrated as gripping (People), blushingly honest (Los Angeles Times), and hysterically funny (CNN), life in Hollywood is no celebrity junket--it's a full-immersion gonzo experiment. After returning to Los Angeles from his harrowing experience in Iraq, Ayres decides to trade the front lines of war for the front lines of the extreme leisure economy. Like Hunter Thompson crossed with one of David Brooks's bobos in paradise, Ayres embeds himself in L.A.'s leisuretocracy: an over-the-top-everything world of caviar facials, billionaire charity balls, souped-up SUVs, and monster home loans . . . not to mention thousand-dollar-a-night brothels and million-dollar poker tournaments. Ayres's highly leveraged lifestyle lands him a surreal night with a supermodel and a disastrous date at Michael Jackson's birthday party at Neverland Ranch (Ayres bribes the organizers five grand to get in). Dreading his thirtieth birthday and determined to find meaning--and maybe a girlfriend--through gratuitous consumption, Ayres begins to auction his possessions via Craigslist as part of a pledge to upgrade everything. Bizarrely, he discovers this is the perfect way to meet girls: A succession of beautiful-but-broke starlets parade through his living room to buy his old furniture. Naturally, he marries one of them. But disaster is never far away. Whether it's a wildfire the size of Massachusetts in which Ayres becomes trapped or a flood that almost wipes his home off its mountainside, the leisure economy seems to be balanced on a precipice. In the book's brutal final section, Ayres is forced to confront theexcesses of his generation at a scene of apocalyptic destruction: the Katrina-ravaged South. Told with the same blend of offbeat irreverence, genuine pathos, and incisive social commentary as War Reporting for Cowards, Ayres's Death by Leisure is a savage and darkly humorous odyssey that taps directly into the contemporary psyche.

Chris Ayres is a small-town boy, a hypochondriac, and a neat freak with an anxiety disorder. Not exactly the picture of a war correspondent. But when his boss asks him if he would like to go to Iraq, he doesn't have the guts to say no. After signing a $1 million life-insurance policy, studying a tutorial on repairing severed limbs, and spending $20,000 in camping gear (only to find out that his bright yellow tent makes him a sitting duck), Ayres is embedded with a battalion of gung ho Marines who either shun him or threaten him when he files an unfavorable story. As time goes on, though, he begins to understand them (and his inexplicably enthusiastic fellow war reporters) more and more: Each night of terrifying combat brings, in the morning, something more visceral than he has ever experienced-the thrill of having won a fight for survival. In the tradition of M*A*S*H, Catch-22, and other classics in which irreverence springs from life in extremis, War Reporting for Cowards tells the story of Iraq in a way that is extraordinarily honest, heartfelt, and bitterly hilarious.

Atlantic Monthly Press

Soy Ozzy: Las memorias de Ozzy Osbourne

Osbourne, Ozzy

Es Pop Ediciones

Chiedilo al Dr. Ozzy. Consigli dall'ultimo sopravvissuto del rock

Universale Arcana

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