The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass

by Bill Maher

Overview

From bestselling author and host of HBO's Real Time, Bill Maher's new book of political riffs serves up a savagely funny set of rules for preserving sanity in an insane world.

A follow-up to the New York Times bestselling The New Rules, The New New Rules delivers a series of hilarious, intelligent rants on everything from same-sex marriage to healthcare, from Republican agendas to celebrity meltdowns, with all the razor-sharp insight that has made Bill Maher one of the most influential comedic voices shaping the political debate today.

With another presidential campaign on the horizon and a stellar set of real-life characters to have fun with - "New Rule: If Charlie Sheen's home life means he can't have a TV show, then I say Newt Gingrich can't be president."

This enlightening and important book may be the best thing you pretend to read all year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452298293
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/01/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's Real Time and hosted Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect for ten years. He has created nine stand-up comedy specials, and garnered twenty-six Emmy nominations thus far. In 2008, Maher produced Religulous, the seventh highest grossing documentary in history.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

January 20, 1956

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Education:

B.A. in English, Cornell University, 1978

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Of all the comic commentators, Maher is the gutsiest, boldest, and least inhibited."
- The Washington Post

Editorial Reviews

One of the establishment’s most entertaining critics.”—The New York Times

“Pundit Bill Maher courts controversy, you say? He calls it telling the truth.”—Entertainment Weekly

From the Publisher

“Pundit Bill Maher courts controversy you say? He calls it telling the truth.

Entertainment Weekly

“One of the establishment’s most entertaining critics.

The New York Times

Controversial ultra-liberal comedian Maher follows his acerbic New Rules collection with more irreverent musings adapted from his popular weekly HBO show Real Time. Addressing his pet peeves from 2005 to the present, the book tackles everything from The Jersey Shore, to Ted Haggard, to porn addiction, to Rick Perry, as Maher traverses what things irritates him most and ruin his American experience. His alphabetized rules are interrupted by longer screeds, including his 2005 foresight about the financial and foreclosure crises of 2008, and a get-out-now letter to Levi Johnston, who fathered Bristol Palin's baby, around the time of the 2008 Republican National Convention. The nonlinear nature of the book takes readers back and forth through the later years of the Bush Administration and the first three of the Obama Administration, showcasing Maher's consistently unforgiving wordplay, snark, and strangely self-aware humility. His satire can be surprisingly humane, though he never misses the opportunity to pun, which makes every entry capable of surprise. The fearless and honest Maher remains the best cultural critic since George Carlin, and his most recent effort is as hilarious as it is precise.
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Publishers Weekly

Nothing is sacred in Bill Maher's NEW NEW RULES. Fans familiar with his TV show will recognize this segment, in which each irreverent and sardonic "rule" is delivered with a punch. Maher skewers everything from politics to celebrities to the most mundane things of everyday life. The rules are arranged in alphabetical order without regard to subject matter groupings, and each rule is prefaced by Maher's announcement of "New rule," which at times can make it sound like he's reading a list. Regardless, the narration is often laugh-out-loud funny, not only because of the humor of Maher's incisive observations, but also because of his sheer audaciousness and equally audacious delivery. It's a mercilessly witty listen. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2011 - AudioFile

Less an actual book than a return to the print-media platform by a brand most familiar from television. "It's a joke book," admits Maher of this sequel to New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (2005). As an alphabetized collection of bits from his "New Rules" TV segments (though some never aired), this book is meatier than a collection of top-10 lists from another TV brand. Yet the author acknowledges that he deserves credit neither for the concept (his program's head writer conceived "New Rules" as a running feature) or for "so many of the jokes in this book" (he has staff writers for that). Consequently, the book is a compilation of TV bits that have aired since the last compilation (which means some might be six years old) and some that didn't make the airtime cut for a variety of reasons, aimed at dedicated Maher fans who want all their favorites in one volume or at those who enjoy Maher when they see him but want to see how much they've missed. Example: "New Rule: The White House doesn't have to release the dead Bin Laden photos, but don't pretend we can't take it. We've seen pictures of Britney Spears's vagina getting out of a car. Television has desensitized us to violence, and porn has desensitized us to people getting shot in the eye." Though Maher's perspective on celebrity culture, marijuana, masturbation and China will be familiar to fans, some of the longer (rarely longer than a page and a half), more ambitious pieces reflect the sensibility he shares with Jon Stewart, with a cutting-edge humor that slices through journalistic hypocrisy--e.g., "We don't need a third party, we need a first party. This is because we don't have a left and a right party in this country anymore. We have a center-right party and a crazy party. Over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital." Funny stuff for TV viewers with short attention spans.

Kirkus Reviews