How to Do Things Right: The Revelations of a Fussy Man - Softcover

Hills, L. Rust

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0879239697 ISBN 13: 9780879239695

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2004

Synopsis

Obsessively-detailed, and very funny, instructions on nearly everything in life you are very possibly doing all wrong.

Help is here! From how to eat an ice-cream cone to developing “principles” when you have none, the author’s mission is to elevate, and ennoble, those fleeting instincts we all harbor to get our lives in order. “Hills is preoccupied primarily with the little things,” Nora Ephron wrote in the New York Times“and he writes about them deliciously.”

This volume includes three titles previously published individually: How To Do Things Right, How to Retire at 41, and How to Be Good. They have been edited, revised and combined into one volume and the contents will have you laughing out loud, thinking hard, and at least temporarily rearranging your frazzled life. Hills is wise, witty, and very, very funny. But behind the humor, Hills remains a deeply sage and serious writer. This is his best advice, from years of experience, served up from the heart of one of the most charming humorists to grace the American scene.

About this title

About the Author

L. Rust Hills was an author and the fiction editor at Esquire from 1957 to 1964, though he remained associated with the magazine until 1999. Authors he championed include Norman Mailer, John Cheever, William Styron, Bruce Jay Friedman, William Gaddis, James Salter, Don DeLillo, Joy Williams, Ann Beattie, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver and E. Annie Proulx.

From the Back Cover

The three titles edited, revised and combined in this volume, How To Do Things Right, How to Retire at 41, and How to Be Good, will have you laughing out loud, thinking hard, and at least temporarily rearranging your frazzled life. Hills is wise, witty, and very, very funny. His mission is to create order out of chaos; to make the arcane methodology of fussiness respectable; to elevate, and even ennoble, those fleeting instincts we all harbor to get our lives in order. All aspects of life are examined here: from how to eat an ice-cream cone to how to develop "principles" when you have none. But behind the frivolous facade, Hills remains a deeply sage and serious writer, a modern combination of Robert Benchley, Henry David Thoreau, and Michel de Montaigne. This is his best advice, served up from the heart of one of the most charming humorists to grace the American scene.

Edition details

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0879239697
• ISBN 13: 9780879239695
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 259