I'd like these books and a three martini lunch, please

July 9, 2005 11:05 AM

I'm looking for books in the same vein as "Bright Lights, Big City", "The Proud Highway" and "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People".

...or, to be more specific, I want to read fiction/non-fiction about journalists/newspaper people... behaving badly. Can you help me out?

posted by soundofsuburbia to writing & language (12 comments total)

Have you read Ben Bradlee's autobiography The Good Life? He doesn't always behave, and it's just a fascinating read about someone who was at the center of Watergate.
posted by jodic at 11:32 AM on July 9, 2005

jodic: No, I haven't read that one, but it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for! Thank you!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 11:38 AM on July 9, 2005

Journalist/newpaper people behaving badly = Hunter S. Thompson. Fear and Loathing in las vegas is a great one.
posted by pwally at 12:17 PM on July 9, 2005

Ted Heller's Slab Rat is hilarious, well-written, and an all-around great read -- it's a novel from early 2001, well before the surge of fiction featuring narrators who are disgruntled magazine employees, so don't let the fact that it features a narrator who's a disgruntled magazine employee deter you.
posted by youarejustalittleant at 1:29 PM on July 9, 2005

watch Sweet Smell of Success and The Front Page and The Philadelphia Story, and His Girl Friday
posted by matteo at 1:43 PM on July 9, 2005

And watch Absence of Malice.
posted by nicwolff at 1:50 PM on July 9, 2005

Matt Taibbi's Spanking the Donkey is a newish one that you might enjoy. There's a journalist behaving badly in The Bonfire of the Vanities, too.
posted by box at 2:00 PM on July 9, 2005

The Midnight Examiner by William Kotzwinkle always makes me laugh, regardless of what Publisher'ss Weekly thinks. That is, if tabloid people can be considered journalists...
posted by Moondoggie at 2:02 PM on July 9, 2005

I quite liked The Frog King by Adam Davies.
posted by jimmythefish at 2:46 PM on July 9, 2005

Here are two I recall:
Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story and Pete Hamill's A Drinking Life.
posted by sillygit at 5:07 PM on July 9, 2005

The Beautiful and the Damned
Generation X
Catcher in the Rye
In general, talk to your local librarian and say, "I'm looking for novels about alienation."
posted by plinth at 7:53 PM on July 9, 2005

Second the Hunter S. Thompson recommendation. Fear and Loathing in Las Veags is good. But for your purposes, I think Hell's Angels and Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail '72 are better.
posted by blindcarboncopy at 3:44 PM on July 11, 2005