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Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

Book cover for Beating Around the Bush
Book cover for Beating Around the BushBook cover for Beating Around the Bush

Introduction by Garry Trudeau

In Beating Around the Bush, his last book before his death in 2007, the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist Art Buchwald examined the ridiculous people and preposterous events that we called our daily reality during the Bush era. Collected from his columns, Buchwald’s satirical voice darts at politicians, power, corporations and the media without pause. A self-described troublemaker, Buchwald represented till the end the great American traits of skepticism, humor, and a refusal to compromise in the face of absurdity.

Book cover for Beating Around the Bush
Book cover for Beating Around the BushBook cover for Beating Around the Bush

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“Quite simply, the funniest U.S. newspaper columnist published today and one of the nation's sharpest political satirists.”

“Buchwald has single-handedly restored humor to contemporary journalism.”

“Buchwald is a pitiless chronicler of human folly, particularly as it manifests itself in public officials; the targets of his satire are pretension, inconsistency, and hypocrisy. He makes his readers laugh out loud, then leaves them wondering whether what they laughed at might not equally well have made them weep.”

Art Buchwald

ART BUCHWALD (1925–2007) was the writer of some thirty-two books, including two children’s books, two novels, and the book Beating Around the Bush. He was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1982, and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Buchwald, by his own report, was a workaholic and had no hobbies.