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| Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis | 
 enlarge | Author: Kingsley Amis
Creator: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy New: $11.40
You Save: $8.59 (43%)
New (37) Used (6) from $11.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 18749
Media: Hardcover
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6 x 5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1596915285
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.21
EAN: 9781596915282
ASIN: 1596915285
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Cheerio to All the Boozemen in the World! July 19, 2008
First, I have never laughed so hard. This book is so funny. Amis has a turn-of-phrase that is incredible. It is also filled with arcana and nuance on the world of booze. I may even try some of his recipes. I truly enjoy the "different" read and books not boring. This is definitely in that category. You don't have to be a drunk to enjoy this book on "drink" and all the social niceties associated with it.
Highly recommended!
 Everyday Drinking July 14, 2008
A very funny and informative collection of essays, built around a short book called Kingsley Amis on Drink which was published in the '70s. I enjoyed the extra pieces added, and any Amis fan will want to add this to his collection.
Entertaing read June 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kingsley Amis sure packed a lot of knoweldge into this book. He just doesn't go on telling us everything there is to know about alcohol, he also tells us how it can be best used for parties. I also liked the section on weight loss for a drinker.
 Funny, thorough -- and bittersweet June 12, 2008
19 out of 23 found this review helpful
If you want a funny and thorough handbook on drinking, this one's for you. I liked the book, but as an infrequent drinker I found myself floundering in its depths. Even when I was in over my head, though, I enjoyed the late author's wit and wry humor.
There's a lot in this little book. An encyclopedic collection of three previously published essays, it covers everything from which wine goes with fondue (Neuchatel will help you "force it down") to how to handle a hangover (drink more alcohol). There are dozens of drink recipes, and the back has a series of funny quizzes, each on a different type of alcoholic beverage.
But in the end, all this attention and intelligence devoted to drinking left me a little sad. Here was a man with such a graceful way with words, yet he spent so much time drinking or recovering from drinking. Indeed, the introduction mentions that "the booze got to him in the end, and robbed him of his wit and charm as well as of his health." What a shame.
On that jolly note, here's the chapter list:
I. On Drink
Introduction
Drinking Literature
Actual Drinks
Tools of the Trade
The Store Cupboard
First Thoughts on Wine
Further Thoughts on Wine
Wine Shopper's Guide
What to Drink with What
Abroad
Mean Sod's Guide (Incorporating Mean Slag's Guide)
The Hangover
The Boozing Man's Diet
How Not to Get Drunk
II. Every Day Drinking
III. How's Your Glass?
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
Quizzes:
Wine -- Elementary
Wine -- Intermediate
Wine -- Advanced
Wine -- France
Wine -- Germany
Wine -- Italy, Spain, Portugal
Wine -- Others
Beer in General
Beer in Particular
Vodka
Aperitifs and Such
Gin
Liqueurs
Rum
Cognac and Armagnac
Brandy (One Step Down)
Distillation
Minor Spirits
Scotch Whiskey I
Scotch Whiskey II
Whiskies and Whiskeys
Port
Sherry
Madeira, Marsala and Others
Cocktails and Mixed Drinks
Inventors and Inventions
Pousse-Cafe I
Pousse-Cafe II
Pousse-Cafe III
Alcohol and Your Interior
Not All Great Minds Drink Alike. June 9, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
"Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time"--Kingsley Amis.
Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) was a prolific English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. Although he is perhaps best known for his 1954 novel Lucky Jim, he is also well known for his lifelong passion for women and drinking. He was not only a disciplined writer, but he was a serious drinker as well, spending much of his time in pubs. He always separated the two activities, writing before the pubs opened every day. "Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life," he wrote in his memoirs, "it must play none in his or her work." With a short Introduction by Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), Everyday Drinking features a collection of previously out-of-print Amis writings on the art of drinking drawn from his 1972 book, On Drink, and his 1983 collection of columns on Every Day Drinking. His collection ends with an entertaining assortment of drinking quizzes, "How's Your Glass?" The spirited observations collected here will not only appeal to anyone with an interest in the drinking life, how to cure a hangover, or how to mix a Lord Jim, but to readers who delight in reading Kingsley Amis, who is known for his meticulously well-crafted prose infused with a brilliantly wry sense of humor. As an authority on the subject of drinking, Amis ridicules wine snobs, Americans, the Irish, Canadians, wives insistent upon wasting space in the refrigerator "with irrelevant rubbish like food," and Pina Coladas ("just the thing for the 95-IQ female") alike. In a word, Everyday Drinking is intoxicating.
G. Merritt
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