Christopher Buckley is a novelist, essayist, humorist, critic, magazine editor and memoirist. His books have been translated into sixteen foreign languages. He worked as a merchant seaman and White House speechwriter. He has written for many newspapers and magazines and has lectured in over 70 cities around the world. He was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence.
Christopher Buckley is a novelist, essayist, humorist, critic, magazine editor and memoirist. His books have been translated into sixteen foreign languages. He worked as a merchant seaman and White House speechwriter. He has written for many newspapers and magazines and has lectured in over 70 cities around the world. He was awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence.
“One of the funniest writers in the English language.”
— Tom Wolfe
“A Benchley with WordPerfect.”
— John Updike
“An effervescent joy.”
— Joseph Heller
“Christopher Buckley is America’s greatest living political satirist.”
— Seattle Times
“The quintessential political novelist of our time.”
— Fortune
“At a time of high political absurdity, Buckley remains our sharpest guide to the capital, and a more serious one than we may suppose.”
— New York Times Book Review
Recent Articles
Press
Feb 4, 2023
America's Byron
George Santos Plays Hideout
Feb 1, 2023
America's Byron
Remembering the poet and novelist James Dickey on his centennial
Sep 2, 2022
Five Best: Literary Breakdowns
Selected by Christopher Buckley, the author, most recently, of ‘Has Anyone Seen My Toes?’
Sep 2, 2022
A satirist and his larger-than-life dad may have disagreed about some important fundamentals in life, but both loved boats and each other
Here, a son remembers some wild days aboard with his legendary father
Aug 5, 2022
Tracing the Republican Party’s devolution to one man: Newt Gingrich
As readers of The Washington Post and his syndicated column know, Dana Milbank covers politics with snap and crackle. His gift, and his dogged reporting, serve him well in his new book, “The Destructionists” (good title), on the quarter-century-long crackup of the Republican Party.
April 2, 2022
Potemkin War Room
Putin advisers tiptoe their way through the minefields in the Kremlin
March 17, 2022
Secrets Of Statecraft: Christopher Buckley On The History Of The Social Faux Pas
In this episode of Secrets of Statecraft, actual historian Andrew Roberts talks to humorist and self-appointed “historian” Christopher Buckley about the faux pas and its celebrated and checkered past. This episode is brimming with witty repartee and hilarious anecdotes featuring several historically significant figures, and not one faux pas (that we know about).
Feb 18, 2022
P.J. O’Rourke and the Death of Conservative Humor
“How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” my friend P.J. O’Rourke asked me one less-than-sober evening years ago. The answer was “One — and that’s not funny!”
January 8, 2022
Instant Classic
How to steal a million antiques
Dec 21, 2021
Where Ya Headed, Comrade?
``Russian President Vladimir Putin has revealed he moonlighted as a taxi-driver to make ends meet following the collapse of the Soviet Union.`` —Daily Mail
Oct 17, 2021
Ciao, Alitalia
``Alitalia may have had its faults, but how many airlines can claim to have been the “pope’s airline” for over five centuries?``
Sep 24, 2021
How to fritter away a family fortune
Anderson Cooper begins his and Katherine Howe’s splendid book with a vignette about his father taking him, age 6, to see the statue of his great-great-great-grandfather “Commodore” Cornelius Vanderbilt outside New York’s Grand Central Terminal. Young Cooper’s takeaway was “that all grandparents turned into statues when they died.”
Jan 6, 2021
Mr. Nunes gets his medal
The Presidential Medal of Freedom has personal resonance for me. As a White House speechwriter in the early 1980s, I sneaked into the East Room and watched President Ronald Reagan hang the beribboned medal around the neck of James Cagney. The actor was in a wheelchair and seemed only dimly aware of what was going on. The president spoke tenderly about how, years earlier, Cagney had gone out of his way to be kind to “a new kid on the Warner’s lot.” It was a touching moment.
Aug 8, 2020
Love Bites
An Ode to Shark Week
