The New New Rules

October 31, 2011
Controversial ultra-liberal comedian Maher follows his acerbic New Rules collection with more irreverent musings adapted from his popular weekly HBO show Real Time. Addressing his pet peeves from 2005 to the present, the book tackles everything from The Jersey Shore, to Ted Haggard, to porn addiction, to Rick Perry, as Maher traverses what things irritates him most and ruin his American experience. His alphabetized rules are interrupted by longer screeds, including his 2005 foresight about the financial and foreclosure crises of 2008, and a get-out-now letter to Levi Johnston, who fathered Bristol Palin's baby, around the time of the 2008 Republican National Convention. The nonlinear nature of the book takes readers back and forth through the later years of the Bush Administration and the first three of the Obama Administration, showcasing Maher's consistently unforgiving wordplay, snark, and strangely self-aware humility. His satire can be surprisingly humane, though he never misses the opportunity to pun, which makes every entry capable of surprise. The fearless and honest Maher remains the best cultural critic since George Carlin, and his most recent effort is as hilarious as it is precise.

November 1, 2011
Less an actual book than a return to the print-media platform by a brand most familiar from television. "It's a joke book," admits Maher of this sequel to New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer (2005). As an alphabetized collection of bits from his "New Rules" TV segments (though some never aired), this book is meatier than a collection of top-10 lists from another TV brand. Yet the author acknowledges that he deserves credit neither for the concept (his program's head writer conceived "New Rules" as a running feature) or for "so many of the jokes in this book" (he has staff writers for that). Consequently, the book is a compilation of TV bits that have aired since the last compilation (which means some might be six years old) and some that didn't make the airtime cut for a variety of reasons, aimed at dedicated Maher fans who want all their favorites in one volume or at those who enjoy Maher when they see him but want to see how much they've missed. Example: "New Rule: The White House doesn't have to release the dead Bin Laden photos, but don't pretend we can't take it. We've seen pictures of Britney Spears's vagina getting out of a car. Television has desensitized us to violence, and porn has desensitized us to people getting shot in the eye." Though Maher's perspective on celebrity culture, marijuana, masturbation and China will be familiar to fans, some of the longer (rarely longer than a page and a half), more ambitious pieces reflect the sensibility he shares with Jon Stewart, with a cutting-edge humor that slices through journalistic hypocrisy--e.g., "We don't need a third party, we need a first party. This is because we don't have a left and a right party in this country anymore. We have a center-right party and a crazy party. Over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital." Funny stuff for TV viewers with short attention spans.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 1, 2011
There's no doubt Bill Maher is funny, except to right-wing Republicans. Fans of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher know that the comedian ends his program with a collection of observations presented under the umbrella of New Rules. This collection, a sequel to New Rules (2005), brings together another batch of rules, some only a few lines long, others meaty essays. Most are political, but some transcend party lines. Who can't agree with this: If you tweet neat stuff about your life for your friends . . . more than 10 times a day, I can tell you a neat fact about your friends. They hate you. There is both new and used material here, though Maher's contention that some of the New New Rules haven't been seen on TV because a guest might have been offended seems a little suspect. When has being offensive ever stopped Maher? But this sort of book shouldn't be read all the way through, anyway. The text is arranged alphabetically by tag lines, such as Sticker Schlock, so there's no problem skipping around. Plenty of laughs for the taking. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Maher's last collection of New Rules hit the New York Times best-seller list, so this one is likely to follow suit. Cross-promotions with HBO will help reach the target audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

January 2, 2012
“New Rule: Stop putting religious statues on the front lawn. Whoever said there are no virgins left in L.A. has never been to a Mexican neighborhood: there’s one in every yard.” Maher’s passionate rants have never been so addictive as in this inspired performance by the master of late-night talk-show controversy. Taking on everyone from god-fearing Christians to overzealous baseball fans that name their children after ballparks, Maher speaks his mind as only he can. Unabashed and unapologetic, Maher’s performance is as entertaining as his HBO program. Luckily, the new rules keep coming and coming and Maher wisely avoids overly long tirades; the laughs are endless in this thought-provoking work. A Blue Rider hardcover.