Drinking, Smoking and Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times

Here's to the three greatest pleasures in life: a cigarette before and a martini after. Drinking, Smoking & Screwing celebrates these less-than-holy pursuits and unlocks the sweet mystery of sin with a sordid selection of essays, stories, excerpts, and poetry from noted libertines such as Mark Twain, Charles Bukowski, Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, Spalding Gray, and Dorothy Parker. Also deliciously wicked is the introduction, penned by Bob Shacochis, author of Swimming the Volcano and not one to shy away from a drink, a smoke, and a... Well, you get the point. He writes, "Not to defend smokers, drinkers, and fuckers would be a terrible mistake.... The world might be simple and clean, but it wouldn't be deliciously, fascinatingly, pathetically human, would it? Nor would it be much fun." And, damn, is this book fun. --Tod Nelson