Classic Drunkard
October 28, 2024 9:50 AM Subscribe
Please recommend to me books about drinking.
I just read Kingsley Amis' On Drink and would like more writing about drinking. I don't need recipe books (or lectures). Basically, I want the printed version of Modern Drunkard - lighthearted, whimsical, celebratory.
I just read Kingsley Amis' On Drink and would like more writing about drinking. I don't need recipe books (or lectures). Basically, I want the printed version of Modern Drunkard - lighthearted, whimsical, celebratory.
The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson
posted by Vek at 9:57 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Vek at 9:57 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
(should note, it is not any of those things you mentioned however. Apologies for pulling the trigger too quickly. It is, though, a classic book about drinking)
posted by Vek at 10:00 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by Vek at 10:00 AM on October 28, 2024
About saloons, but there's a lot of booze in there, of course: The Old-Time Saloon: Not Wet - Not Dry, Just History by George Ade. Originally published in 1931 and reprinted by the University of Chicago in 2016.
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 10:06 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by ALeaflikeStructure at 10:06 AM on October 28, 2024
drinking, a love story [g]
everything by charles bukowski [wiki]
posted by HearHere at 10:07 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
everything by charles bukowski [wiki]
posted by HearHere at 10:07 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Not a book, but Chesterton's Rolling English Road may fit your bill:
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
It helps if you know the places mentioned (all very far apart). Kendal Green is a large London cemetery.
posted by Fuchsoid at 10:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.
His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.
My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
It helps if you know the places mentioned (all very far apart). Kendal Green is a large London cemetery.
posted by Fuchsoid at 10:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
I really enjoyed Drink: A Social History of America by Andrew Barr.
Everyone always recommends Pete Hamill's memoir A Drinking Life in this context, but I haven't read it. (I did just pick it up, though!
Oh, and Jonathan Ames's The Alcoholic is really good!
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Everyone always recommends Pete Hamill's memoir A Drinking Life in this context, but I haven't read it. (I did just pick it up, though!
Oh, and Jonathan Ames's The Alcoholic is really good!
posted by Dr. Wu at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by DeVoto I think fits the bill! It's a weird mix of a book, he has very strong opinions that are semi-satirical. But it's fun to read!
posted by Carillon at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by Carillon at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024
I was quite entertained by Everyday Drinking, essays by novelist Kingsley Amis
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Should have read your entire post.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024
Peter Mayle's Provence books have a lot of delicious scenes involving the drinking of French wines. My favorite is the Chateauneuf du Pape chapter in Toujours Provence.
posted by JanetLand at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by JanetLand at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024
You might find something on this list as well (some of it is alcoholism, but some seems closer to what you want).
posted by JanetLand at 11:17 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by JanetLand at 11:17 AM on October 28, 2024
If all this lightheartedness proves to be too much and you're in the mood for something quite a bit darker, Hans Fallada's The Drinker and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano might fit the bill.
posted by saladin at 11:18 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by saladin at 11:18 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
There is actually a Modern Drunkard book (2005), if you don't already have it!
posted by CheeseLouise at 11:54 AM on October 28, 2024
posted by CheeseLouise at 11:54 AM on October 28, 2024
Iain Banks wrote a book about touring the Scottish distilleries in a fast car, Raw Spirit
A lot of Dorothy Parker's short stories are about the booze
posted by runincircles at 2:50 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
A lot of Dorothy Parker's short stories are about the booze
posted by runincircles at 2:50 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Don Marquis's "Old Soak" columns might be something you'd enjoy.
posted by humbug at 3:42 PM on October 28, 2024
posted by humbug at 3:42 PM on October 28, 2024
Less a memoir and more about history viewed through a drinking glass, And A Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails by Wayne Curtis has pirates, sugar barons, Paul Revere, prohibitionists, Hemingway, and tiki bars.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:07 PM on October 28, 2024
posted by TWinbrook8 at 5:07 PM on October 28, 2024
The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking, by Olivia Laing.
And Laing’s piece about women writers here at the Guardian.
posted by plant or animal at 8:41 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
And Laing’s piece about women writers here at the Guardian.
posted by plant or animal at 8:41 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck.
posted by pazazygeek at 9:16 PM on October 28, 2024
posted by pazazygeek at 9:16 PM on October 28, 2024
Moscow-Petushki (Moscow to the End of the Line/Moscow Stations/Moscow Circles) by Venedikt Verofeyev.
posted by sohalt at 2:04 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by sohalt at 2:04 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
An anti-recommendation for you (though I'd recommend her to others) for Olivia Laing - her writing on alcoholic authors is brilliant, but hardly "lighthearted, whimsical, celebratory".
posted by altolinguistic at 4:00 AM on October 29, 2024
posted by altolinguistic at 4:00 AM on October 29, 2024
The Longest Crawl by Ian Marchant was a great read and certainly written in the spirit of lightheartedness.
posted by jacobean at 10:18 AM on October 29, 2024
posted by jacobean at 10:18 AM on October 29, 2024
Amazing that nobody has recommended the best book ever written about being a drunkard, J.P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man. When it comes to fiction about being a drunk, there's no comparison. A book so soused many Irish-style pubs across the world are named after it
posted by dis_integration at 12:06 PM on October 30, 2024
posted by dis_integration at 12:06 PM on October 30, 2024
For non fiction, I second The Trip to Echo Spring. The part about Tennessee Williams is heavy.
For fiction, I recommend under-rated surrealist classic A Night of Serious Drinking by Rene Daumal.
posted by ovvl at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2024
For fiction, I recommend under-rated surrealist classic A Night of Serious Drinking by Rene Daumal.
posted by ovvl at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2024
Moscow to the End of the Line by Venedikt Erofeev, which I see someone's beaten me to.
Also just about any of Lucia Berlin's short stories in A Manual for Cleaning Women.
I suppose poems by Li Po, China's most beloved drunken poet, and a failed bureaucrat.
Also, didn't Anne Fadiman write a much smaller book about wine after her phenomenal The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down?
posted by knucklebones at 1:09 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also just about any of Lucia Berlin's short stories in A Manual for Cleaning Women.
I suppose poems by Li Po, China's most beloved drunken poet, and a failed bureaucrat.
Also, didn't Anne Fadiman write a much smaller book about wine after her phenomenal The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down?
posted by knucklebones at 1:09 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Great prompt, most of my faves have been covered.
Amos Tutuola - The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Different pocket, but . . . delightful.
Every Raymond Carver story, although that’s veering from the lighthearted substantially.
The Jazz Butcher song D.R.I.N.K.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:48 PM on October 31, 2024
Amos Tutuola - The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Different pocket, but . . . delightful.
Every Raymond Carver story, although that’s veering from the lighthearted substantially.
The Jazz Butcher song D.R.I.N.K.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:48 PM on October 31, 2024
Can't believe that Imbibe and Punch by David Wondrich haven't been mentioned yet.
They're fantastic books of cocktail history.
posted by Gadarene at 1:02 AM on November 3, 2024
They're fantastic books of cocktail history.
posted by Gadarene at 1:02 AM on November 3, 2024
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posted by Joeruckus at 9:55 AM on October 28, 2024