I was delighted with Amis's book on drink,the effects of drink and the types of drink;his underdstudied wit combined with practical alchohol knowledge made for an enjoyable and useful read. Would highly recommend.

It's great to see Amis's finest work, _On Drink_, back in print at last. I had a second-hand copy but it was worth buying this to get the other two books included in the volume. The volume is attractively printed and bound and unabridged, and is a great gift too.

My only (minor) complaint is that the Amis's own texts (as opposed to the additional front matter) have been edited according to American punctuation conventions. This work is literary enough that the author's details should have been unaltered.

This "everything you wanted to know about" style book on booze is a wonderful addition to anyone's bookcase. Everyday Drinking contains all of the information on alcohol that you could ever desire to know...and delivered through the side splitting rapier's wit of Kingsley Amis. A real treat!

First, I have never laughed so hard. This book is so funny. Amis has a turn-of-phrase that is incredible. It is also filled with arcana and nuance on the world of booze. I may even try some of his recipes. I truly enjoy the "different" read and books not boring. This is definitely in that category. You don't have to be a drunk to enjoy this book on "drink" and all the social niceties associated with it.

Highly recommended!

A very funny and informative collection of essays, built around a short book called Kingsley Amis on Drink which was published in the '70s. I enjoyed the extra pieces added, and any Amis fan will want to add this to his collection.

Kingsley Amis sure packed a lot of knoweldge into this book. He just doesn't go on telling us everything there is to know about alcohol, he also tells us how it can be best used for parties. I also liked the section on weight loss for a drinker.

If you want a funny and thorough handbook on drinking, this one's for you. I liked the book, but as an infrequent drinker I found myself floundering in its depths. Even when I was in over my head, though, I enjoyed the late author's wit and wry humor.

There's a lot in this little book. An encyclopedic collection of three previously published essays, it covers everything from which wine goes with fondue (Neuchåtel will help you "force it down") to how to handle a hangover (drink more alcohol). There are dozens of drink recipes, and the back has a series of funny quizzes, each on a different type of alcoholic beverage.

But in the end, all this attention and intelligence devoted to drinking left me a little sad. Here was a man with such a graceful way with words, yet he spent so much time drinking or recovering from drinking. Indeed, the introduction mentions that "the booze got to him in the end, and robbed him of his wit and charm as well as of his health." What a shame.

On that jolly note, here's the chapter list:

I. On Drink
Introduction
Drinking Literature
Actual Drinks
Tools of the Trade
The Store Cupboard
First Thoughts on Wine
Further Thoughts on Wine
Wine Shopper's Guide
What to Drink with What
Abroad
Mean Sod's Guide (Incorporating Mean Slag's Guide)
The Hangover
The Boozing Man's Diet
How Not to Get Drunk

II. Every Day Drinking

III. How's Your Glass?
Introduction
List of Abbreviations
Quizzes:
Wine -- Elementary
Wine -- Intermediate
Wine -- Advanced
Wine -- France
Wine -- Germany
Wine -- Italy, Spain, Portugal
Wine -- Others
Beer in General
Beer in Particular
Vodka
Aperitifs and Such
Gin
Liqueurs
Rum
Cognac and Armagnac
Brandy (One Step Down)
Distillation
Minor Spirits
Scotch Whiskey I
Scotch Whiskey II
Whiskies and Whiskeys
Port
Sherry
Madeira, Marsala and Others
Cocktails and Mixed Drinks
Inventors and Inventions
Pousse-Café I
Pousse-Café II
Pousse-Café III
Alcohol and Your Interior

"Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time"--Kingsley Amis.

Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) was a prolific English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. Although he is perhaps best known for his 1954 novel Lucky Jim, he is also well known for his lifelong passion for women and drinking. He was not only a disciplined writer, but he was a serious drinker as well, spending much of his time in pubs. He always separated the two activities, writing before the pubs opened every day. "Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life," he wrote in his memoirs, "it must play none in his or her work." With a short Introduction by Christopher Hitchens (God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), Everyday Drinking features a collection of previously out-of-print Amis writings on the art of drinking drawn from his 1972 book, On Drink, and his 1983 collection of columns on Every Day Drinking. His collection ends with an entertaining assortment of drinking quizzes, "How's Your Glass?" The spirited observations collected here will not only appeal to anyone with an interest in the drinking life, how to cure a hangover, or how to mix a Lord Jim, but to readers who delight in reading Kingsley Amis, who is known for his meticulously well-crafted prose infused with a brilliantly wry sense of humor. As an authority on the subject of drinking, Amis ridicules wine snobs, Americans, the Irish, Canadians, wives insistent upon wasting space in the refrigerator "with irrelevant rubbish like food," and Pina Coladas ("just the thing for the 95-IQ female") alike. In a word, Everyday Drinking is intoxicating.

G. Merritt

If you're interested in reading about the drinking life, where better to start than with a collection of writings on drink by Kingsley Amis, introduced by Christopher Hitchens? Though it weighs in at a mere 3.2 ounces, "Everyday Drinking" offers up enough drinking experience to float an aircraft carrier.

The book comprises three Amis titles. "On Drink" (1972) is a kind of informal treatise on drinking. "Every Day Drinking" (1983) is a collection of columns. "How's Your Glass?" (1984) is a set of drinking quizzes.

Though Amis provides a good bit of technical information and asks readers to produce no end of less-than-necessary information in the quizzes (he asks us to name a liqueur made with naartjies, for example), the main pleasures of "Everyday Drinking" are to be found in Amis's description of the drinking *life* and in his sublimely crotchety sense of humor.

Some people will object that Amis's repeated grousing about music in pubs is quaint, reactionary, and ridiculous. Such people are entitled to their opinions, of course, just as the rest of us are entitled to point out that such people are either drug-addled hipsters or ill-bred morons.

For those of you out there who are neither drug-addled hipsters nor ill-bred morons, here are a few choice sips of Amis:

* On the necessity of having a refrigerator to oneself: "Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food."

* On being a cheapskate of a host: "In preparing a gin and tonic, for instance, put the tonic and the ice and a thick slice of lemon in first and pour on them a thimbleful of gin *over the back of a spoon*, so it will linger near the surface and give a strong-tasting first sip, which is the one that counts."

* On the claim that the Irish taught the Scots the process of distillation: "The idea of a medieval Irishman inventing a rather complicated technique like that of distilling, or anything at all for that matter, is hard to credit."

* On Galliano: "Another Italian liqueur, Galliano, has gained a good deal of ground over the last few years, not as a drink on its own but as a constituent of the famous or infamous cocktail the Harvey Wallbanger, named after some reeling idiot in California."

* On drinking with wine snobs: "If asked what you think [about the wine], say breezily, 'Jolly good,' as though you always say that whatever it's like. This may suggest that your mind's on higher things than wine, like gin or sex."

Amis might be accused of being a bit harsh at times, as when he claims that the Pina Colada is "[j]ust the thing for the 95-IQ female" and that drinking lager and lime is "an exit application from the human race," but you have to admire a man who defends his convictions with such vigor. As someone who has been known to toss back lots (and lots) of Pina Coladas *and* lagers with lime when the weather's hot, I am more than willing to endure Amis's ridicule in exchange for the pleasure of having him ridicule wine snobs and Canadians.

He ridicules Canadians in a loving way, of course, just as he ridicules the Irish, Americans, and Kingsley Amis. As for wine snobs, they deserve their ridicule neat.

My one complaint about the book is that the introduction is on the short side. Hitchens is as entertaining as Amis, and an even better crafter of sentences, and I would have enjoyed a few more pages. Must have been pushing a deadline. Or running up against cocktail hour.