Everyday Drinking: The Distilled Kingsley Amis [Hardcover]

Kingsley Amis (Author), Christopher Hitchens (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: May 13, 2008

A gift for anyone who loves good liquor and high-proof prose: a collection of hilarious and deeply informed writings about drink from one of the all-time authorities.
Kingsley Amis was one of the great masters of comic prose, and no subject was dearer to him than the art and practice of imbibing. This new volume brings together the best of his three out-of-print works on the subject. Along with a series of well-tested recipes (including a cocktail called the Lucky Jim) the book includes Amis’s musings on The Hangover, The Boozing Man’s Diet, What to Drink with What, and (presumably as a matter of speculation) How Not to Get Drunk—all leavened with fun quizzes on the making and drinking of alcohol all over the world. Mixing practical know-how and hilarious opinionation, this is a delightful cocktail of wry humor and distilled knowledge, served by one of our great gimlet wits.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The drinks revival is nearly complete—it’s now possible to be as insufferable about beer and spirits as about wine—but the revival seems to come with a warning label: enjoy the drinks, but don’t drink too much. In the face of that, it’s refreshing to see an artifact from a more hedonistic era: Amis knew the finer points of booze as well as anyone, but he never apologized for enjoying its effect, either. This reissue, appropriately introduced by Christopher Hitchens, collects Amis’ three drinks books: On Drink (1973), an indispensable primer; Every Day Drinking (1983), a browseworthy collection of newspaper columns; and How’s Your Glass? (1984), a dispensable collection of quizzes. Some of the advice is timeless—Amis, who could presumably afford better, advocated strategic deployment of cheap booze to save money—and some is not: liquor-store shelves look so different now that some passages are best read for historical perspective. But good humor never spoils, and Amis’ quips and gripes about noisy pubs, vodka drinkers, wine snobs, teetotalers, and hangovers grow more delicious with age. --Keir Graff

Review

"These books are so delicious they impart a kind of contact high; they make you feel as if you’ve just had the first sip of the planet’s coldest, driest martini...A reminder of how good all of Amis’s writing was about being what he called a “drink-man”: smart, no-nonsense and, above all else, charming...you finish this book believing that [alcohol] added more to his life than it took away. [Everyday Drinking] deserves to be rediscovered.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times

"There has never been a more charming, erudite, eager, generous and devoted lover of drink--to judge by his writing--than Kingsley Amis." —The New York Times Book Review

"With spirits, as with movies, there exists a breed of critic who both illuminates and entertains and, consequently, is worth reading. Kingsley Amis falls into that category — a great comic wit, Amis' writings (both fiction and non) about alcohol are among the very best." —Washington Times

"Back in print at last, Bloomsbury having gathered into one delightful volume under the title "Everyday Drinking" that's now hitting bookstore shelves. It is essential reading for any literate bibber." —Wall Street Journal

"It’s refreshing to see an artifact from a more hedonistic era….Amis’ quips and gripes about noisy pubs, vodka drinkers, wine snobs, teetotalers, and hangovers grow more delicious with age." —Booklist

"Among Amis’s literary output the journalism on drinking, recently collected and published with an introduction by (who else?) Christopher Hitchens, is in no way the least achievement because it is a reminder and a record of a culture that is incrementally slipping away….Like a bottle of Laphroaig, this book is full of good things, many of them familiar though others are more intriguing." —New Humanist

“Studded with hilarious observations and much good advice.” —Kyle Smith

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA; First Edition edition (May 13, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915285
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915282
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #543,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 93 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One Drunk Englishman May 28, 2008

By Asher Waxwing

Format:Hardcover

If you're interested in reading about the drinking life, where better to start than with a collection of writings on drink by Kingsley Amis, introduced by Christopher Hitchens? Though it weighs in at a mere 3.2 ounces, "Everyday Drinking" offers up enough drinking experience to float an aircraft carrier.

The book comprises three Amis titles. "On Drink" (1972) is a kind of informal treatise on drinking. "Every Day Drinking" (1983) is a collection of columns. "How's Your Glass?" (1984) is a set of drinking quizzes.

Though Amis provides a good bit of technical information and asks readers to produce no end of less-than-necessary information in the quizzes (he asks us to name a liqueur made with naartjies, for example), the main pleasures of "Everyday Drinking" are to be found in Amis's description of the drinking *life* and in his sublimely crotchety sense of humor.

Some people will object that Amis's repeated grousing about music in pubs is quaint, reactionary, and ridiculous. Such people are entitled to their opinions, of course, just as the rest of us are entitled to point out that such people are either drug-addled hipsters or ill-bred morons.

For those of you out there who are neither drug-addled hipsters nor ill-bred morons, here are a few choice sips of Amis:

* On the necessity of having a refrigerator to oneself: "Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food...."

* On being a cheapskate of a host: "In preparing a gin and tonic, for instance, put the tonic and the ice and a thick slice of lemon in first and pour on them a thimbleful of gin *over the back of a spoon*, so it will linger near the surface and give a strong-tasting first sip, which is the one that counts."

* On the claim that the Irish taught the Scots the process of distillation: "The idea of a medieval Irishman inventing a rather complicated technique like that of distilling, or anything at all for that matter, is hard to credit."

* On Galliano: "Another Italian liqueur, Galliano, has gained a good deal of ground over the last few years, not as a drink on its own but as a constituent of the famous or infamous cocktail the Harvey Wallbanger, named after some reeling idiot in California."

* On drinking with wine snobs: "If asked what you think [about the wine], say breezily, 'Jolly good,' as though you always say that whatever it's like. This may suggest that your mind's on higher things than wine, like gin or sex."

Amis might be accused of being a bit harsh at times, as when he claims that the Pina Colada is "[j]ust the thing for the 95-IQ female" and that drinking lager and lime is "an exit application from the human race," but you have to admire a man who defends his convictions with such vigor. As someone who has been known to toss back lots (and lots) of Pina Coladas *and* lagers with lime when the weather's hot, I am more than willing to endure Amis's ridicule in exchange for the pleasure of having him ridicule wine snobs and Canadians.

He ridicules Canadians in a loving way, of course, just as he ridicules the Irish, Americans, and Kingsley Amis. As for wine snobs, they deserve their ridicule neat.

My one complaint about the book is that the introduction is on the short side. Hitchens is as entertaining as Amis, and an even better crafter of sentences, and I would have enjoyed a few more pages. Must have been pushing a deadline. Or running up against cocktail hour. Read more ›

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kingsley Amis never disappoints November 23, 2008

By Geoff Puterbaugh

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

In a strange sort of way, Kingsley Amis does for drink what Anthony Bourdain does for food: with enormous humor and joy in life, both authors just say "go for it." It is probably no coincidence that they both loathe vegetarians, especially vegans.

I am not particularly sure that Amis is utterly scientific on the topic of drink (who is?), but he is utterly funny. And, for my two cents, he is funniest when he returns (again and again) to "The Wine Problem." As he mutters in his curmudgeonly way, there is no actual problem with wine itself: the problem is with inviting guests for dinner, who all arrive expecting wine AS A MATTER OF COURSE. If you don't serve them wine (even "plonk," British English for "rotgut"), you instantly lose social status. And Amis offers other examples: having dinner at an Indian restaurant featuring fiery curries, or at a Thai restaurant -- is this really the time to play the Wine-Snob Card? Or would you enjoy your dinner much much more if it were accompanied by beer? (M.F.K. Fisher would be nodding her head from A Better World.)

My own sainted mother once worked her own way around "The Wine Problem," when she realized that one of her guests (A Wine Snob) would drink only red wines -- and, thirty minutes before dinner -- she had only white wines. Well, she put red food-coloring into the white wine, and the great Wine Snob praised his delicious drink!

Just as perceptive: Amis divides the world into those who prefer cocktails, and those who prefer wine. He places himself emphatically in the first group, although he freely admits to chugging that da**ed wine from time to time ("particularly when dinner looks to be a long way off, and there is nothing else available....")

Amis himself led a highly entertaining life -- at least for outside spectators. He started off as a young Communist, but sooner or later began to come to his senses, and ended up as great friends with the likes of Robert Conquest. He wrote one of the funniest novels ever written ("Lucky Jim") and a great black comedy ("Ending Up.") By the end of his days, the former Young Communist was accused of being a "fuddy-duddy reactionary." The older Amis published such opinions gleefully, and said awful things like: "Who needs change?"

His "simplified recipe" for the Singapore Sling is lamentable, however, and he might actually have enjoyed such new baubles as the caipirinha.

A great little book for a quiet December evening! Read more ›

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A supremely witty treatment of the subject of boozemanship. November 28, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Kingsley Amis writes in the breezy style of a good English gent, on a subject about which he has much knowledge and even more experience--boozemanship. This series of short articles provides an authoritative statement on what to drink and how to drink it, along with with a hefty jigger of Amis's profoundly hilarious sense of understatement.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cheerio to All the Boozemen in the World! July 19, 2008

By dipacmr

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Back in print at last! August 6, 2008

By J. A. Funk

Format:Hardcover

It's great to see Amis's finest work, _On Drink_, back in print at last. I had a second-hand copy but it was worth buying this to get the other two books included in the volume. The volume is attractively printed and bound and unabridged, and is a great gift too.

My only (minor) complaint is that the Amis's own texts (as opposed to the additional front matter) have been edited according to American punctuation conventions. This work is literary enough that the author's details should have been unaltered.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaing read June 19, 2008

By Frederik Knudsen

Format:Hardcover

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.