Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription: Notes and Asides from National ReviewPM [Hardcover]

William F. Buckley Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007

Who knew that William F. Buckley Jr., the quintessential conservative, invented the blog decades before the World Wide Web came into existence? National Review, like nearly all magazines, has always published letters from readers. In 1967 the magazine decided that certain letters merited different treatment, and Buckley, the editor, began a column called “Notes & Asides,” in which he personally answered the most notable and outrageous letters. The selections in this book, culled from four decades of these columns, include exchanges with such figures as Ronald Reagan, Eric Sevareid, Richard Nixon, A. M. Rosenthal, Auberon Waugh, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. There are also hilarious exchanges with ordinary readers, as well as letters from Buckley to various organizations and government agencies.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr. is the author of fifty previous works of fiction and nonfiction. The founder and former editor-in-chief of National Review and former host of “Firing Line,” he has been one of the intellectual leaders of the right since the 1950s. He lives in Stamford, Connecticut, and New York City.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1ST edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465002420
• ISBN-13: 978-0465002429
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #751,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 81 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful exchanges from the decades of National Review November 20, 2007

By Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

National Review and William F. Buckley Jr. have been a delight in my life for decades. One of the great features of magazine was called Notes and Asides. It contained a wonderfully strange mix of letters with responses from Buckley that covered language, politics, arts, challenges, witty exchanges, questions, requests, WFB's posture, and letters from Presidents. They are all wonderful in their way and many are laugh out loud funny. This book is a chronological collection of selections from this department from 1967-2005.

Not only are these exchanges wonderful insights into the times in which they were written, they bring back wonderful memories and fill in some of the things I missed. There is an ongoing joke between WFB and Art Buchwald about the perks Buchwald is getting from his Hertz Platinum card that he assumes WFB is not getting or getting more of than him. It is all good fun. We also get some warmish exchanges between WFB and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., some light tweaking between John Kenneth Galbraith and WFB, and letters WFB sent to various publications correcting statements made about him in their pages.

There is also the wonderful fun Buckley has with language and those who criticize his usage, "accent", and vocabulary. He handles it all with good humor and patiently explains that his first language was Spanish, then French, and didn't speak English until he was five. One of the fun bits recounts the famous phrase "immanentize the eschaton". Did you know it became a motto of Young Americans for Freedom? What does it mean? Simply to attempt to bring from the transcendent from the spiritual world (the eschaton) into this world (the immanent). It is a criticism of hubris in liberal attempts to try and create a literal Heaven on Earth.

Buckley also had long legal battles with certain trade unions because Charlton Heston and Tom Selleck did commercials for National Review gratis. Another union earlier had demanded that Buckley join in order to do Firing Line for free and give it away. There are also nice letters to and from friends that are touching and always interesting. However, I will state that I am not the only one that thinks Buckley wrong to use the name of God as a mere intensifier simply because it is common usage. There are lots of things in common usage that he, as a serious Christian, does not do. Misusing the Lord's name in this way is one of them. But in the balance, Buckley has given me (and others) so much, that it is something I can ignore.

This book is fun and I encourage you to get it, read it, and enjoy the fun the art of letter writing can provide. I know it is an almost extinct art form, but maybe it can be revived if enough people remember how delightful a well written letter and reply can be.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Buckley, The Original Blogger January 23, 2008

By R. W. Rasband VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

One of the things which first hooked me on "National Review" when I was younger was the hilarious informality of Bill Buckley's "Notes and Asides" column. He set apart space in his magazine to joust with some readers and have fun with others, in a gloriously unbuttoned style that was irresistible to a budding teenage libertarian like me. He has gathered together his greatest hits in "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" (a title which perfectly sums up the wonderfully impudent tone of the book.) In some ways Buckley was the original blogger and this book provides a running history of U.S. politics and culture in recent decades from one guy's brilliantly witty perspective. If you are looking for a way to ease into Buckley's voluminous writings this is an excellent place to start.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, personal, and worth returning to April 23, 2008

By Andrew S. Rogers TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

With the publication of the wonderful Florence King's Stet, Damnit! in 2003 and WFB's "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" in 2007, National Review books are breaking new ground in the use of profanity in titles. Which is not a field in which I would have expected them to show such leadership. But since we have Buckley's own assurance in these pages (page 33, to be precise) that "goddam," as used, is profane but not blasphemous, sensitive readers should not be troubled.

William F. Buckley's books can be categorized, broadly, in two ways: books of conservative theory and practice (his collected columns, The Unmaking of a Mayor, etc.), and what could be termed personal indulgences (Overdrive: A Personal Documentary, the spy novels, and so on). This book is unquestionably an indulgence, and people who have little patience for Buckley and his well-established personality and voice will probably find this book, as they found him, infuriating. But for those of us who had great respect for the man and enjoyed watching him perform (no slight intended by use of that word), even when we may have disagreed with him, "Cancel Your Own..." is a joy to read and a foretaste of how much we will miss him in the future.

As the subtitle indicates, "Cancel Your Own..." is made up of excerpts and highlights from WFB's long-running "Notes and Asides" column in NR. The book, like N&A itself, included selected correspondence, sent and received, memoranda, and other comments and exchanges WFB considered worth sharing with a wider audience. As you'd expect from a collection he assembled himself (with the help of researchers acknowledged in the text), it shows Buckley at his best, whether smacking down a critic with airy ease, refusing to tolerate misquotation or mistranslation, or simply conducting internal or external business.

While personal favorites of mine include his ukase on the use of the serial comma, exchanges with Eric Alterman, and a magnificent letter from my hero Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn listing no fewer than 20 errors or linguistic or cultural solecisms in Buckley's Who's on First: A Blackford Oakes Mystery most any Buckley fan will be able to come up with their own list. On the other hand, Art Buchwald's strange obsession with Hertz rental cars, which he apparently thought was funny and about which he wrote WFB frequently, I found merely tiresome.

As many of his recent obituaries noted, WFB seems to have recognized in his final years that the rightist movement he did so much to create was already in its own final years and was being replaced by a very different kind of "conservatism." So much of Buckley's work now is mostly of historic interest (who reads Four Reforms: A Program for the Seventies or United Nations Journal: A Delegate's Odyssey for contemporary relevance any more?). Perhaps ironically, it's now those "indulgences" that draw us most strongly. I think "Cancel Your Own..." is a book people will keep returning to, and justly so.