Roy Blount Jr.

Ali G: How many words does you know? Noam Chomsky: Normally, humans, by maturity, have tens of thousands of them. Ali G: What is some of 'em? — Youtube.com After forty years of making a living using words in every medium, print or electronic, except greeting cards, Roy Blount Jr. still can't...

The first collection of the beloved humorist's sly, dry, hilarious essays in more than a decade focuses on a perennially popular topic: the South vs. the North. "When [Northerners] ask me to explain grits, I look at them like an Irishman who's been asked to explain potatoes." "When I was a boy...

“Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street’s in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first...

“Betcha I can tell ya / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Betchadollar, / Betchadollar, / Where ya / Got them shoooes. / Got your shoes on your feet, / Got your feet on the street, / And the street’s in Noo / Awlins, Loo- / Eez-ee-anna. Where I, for my part, first ate a live oyster and first...

Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, a complex soul, and a Southerner to the core. Tapped by Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army in the Civil War, his Virginian roots led him to command the Confederates instead. A charismatic though reluctant leader, his military audacity and tactical...