P. J. O’Rourke is certainly one of his generation’s many celebrated politics humorists, hailed as “the funniest writer in the us” by both Period and The Wall structure Road Journal. Twenty-three years ago, he released the traditional travelogue Holidays in Hell, where he trotted the globe being a “difficulty visitor,” a chaos rubberneck, sight-seeing at wars, rebellions, riots, political crises, and additional monuments of human folly. Following the Iraq War – “as well old to keep being scared stiff and too stiff to maintain sleeping about Holidays in Heck on the ground” – he retired from what international correspondents call “being truly a s**thole professional.” But he couldn’t quit traveling to absurd places, often along with his wife and three young children in tow. Generally he was still left wishing he were under artillery fire again. O’Rourke’s journeys take him to locales both near (and nearly bizarre) and considerably (and definately not normal). Having made a joke that Ski magazine takes seriously, he winds up on a family skiing vacation – to Ohio. The best point of elevation may be the six-foot ski trainer his wife considers is pretty. Convinced by a vintage friend and one too many drinks that “a horse trek is just backpacking on someone else’s back again,” he finds himself (barely) in the saddle, crossing the mountains to a part of Kyrgyzstan so remote the Kyrgyzs haven’t seen it. He appointments Kabul for the meals and conversation (exceptional lamb chops and a droll after dinner tale about the mullah as well as the cow). He also takes his kids to his erstwhile home abroad, the bar in the International Correspondents Membership in Hong Kong. Vacations in Heck shows P. J. O’Rourke in best form – a little old, a little wiser, likely to the bathroom a bit more often, and darkly funny as he is at Vacations in Hell. This is a hilarious and often moving portrait of lifestyle in the fast street, as he’s usually lived it – only this time using the backseat drivers that relationship entails and three little hostages to lot of money strapped into the booster seats.