An anthology of short fiction from the pages of "Esquire" magazine from the early 1930s to the late 1990s showcases contributions by such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, Jack Kerouac, Flannery O'Connor, and Saul Bellow.

Just being a man was never more fraught with confusion and peril. Derived from Esquire's popular feature, this men's manual to life in the 21st century offers more than 500 rules that make for lighthearted reading and manly musings. Accompanied by wry black and white illustrations on each page, the rules are guaranteed to set a guy straight. Here is entertainment to live by: Rule number 28: If there is danger involved, it is fun. Rule number 33: Never trust anyone with a phone number that ends in 00. Rule number 71: The best blind dates are with girls named Kelly or Samantha. Rule number 112: You cut the fat, you cut the flavor. Rule number 117: No movie should have its title incorporated into the dialogue. Rule number 198: When it comes to luggage, men don't pull. Rule number 243: Slow-motion violence goes best with Mahler. Rule number 289:The people who elect to perform karaoke are never the people you wish to perform karaoke. Rule number 311: A man should avoid using the phrase "assume the position" on the first date. Rule number 317: No straws.

An instant New York Times bestseller! From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history. It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job. Beyond epiphenomena like "Cop Killer" and Titanic and Zima, there were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 90’s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it. In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, “The video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany” make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.

Here they are--some of the funniest tales and ruminations ever put into print, by one of the great comic minds of our time. From THE WHORE OF MENSA, to GOD (A Play), to NO KADDISH FOR WEINSTEIN, old and new Woody Allen fans will laugh themselves hysterical over these sparkling gems.

"Times change. Technology changes. And so THE RULES must be updated. Hence this all-new book codifies Eqsuire's 851 rules to live by NOW. From work to style, women to communication, cars to fitness, these are the things successful men need to know to navigate life today." --

For seventy years, Esquire has established a reputation for publishing the most innovative nonfiction in the country, and this remarkable anthology of more than fifty articles is a testament to that quality. "This collection is an inspiration," writes Esquire editor in chief David Granger, "as much for the stories contained within, as for the belief that the written word can change and enlighten the world, one story at a time." Book jacket.

A review of men's fashions from the thirties, forties, and post war period.