The Real Thing: A Book That Separates the Men from the Boys, and the Wheat from the Chaff, and the Bogus from the Bona Fide

by Kurt Andersen

A former National Lampoon editor cuts through today's fast-paced, opinion-oriented promotional hype to distinguish the "genuine articles" which have survived cheap, shoddy imitations, from burgers to New England burghers

Genres: Humor

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Kurt Andersen is the author of the novels Turn of the Century, Heyday, and True Believers, and and, with Alec Baldwin of You Can't Spell America Without Me. His non-fiction books include Fantasyland, Reset and The Real Thing.

He is also host of the Peabody Award-winning weekly public radio program Studio 360,.

Previously, Kurt was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of the satirical magazine Spy, editor-in-chief of New York magazine, a columnist for New York, staff writer at The New Yorker, and design and architecture critic for Time.

Reviews

[Jill H.]

I am sure that this short little book was hilarious when it was first released in 1980 and is still humorous. But it has dated badly since it takes on "the real things" that most people don't recognize, are no longer extant or remember........Burger Chef, Bianca Jagger, discotheques, beauty queens, etc. It is snarky and clever and some of the entries are right on target, such as Coca-Cola and Impressionist painters, but the majority have become rather meaningless.

It is a short book that might give you a chuckle but is basically outdated.

[Leonard Pierce]

Way, way back, even before there was a Spy magazine, fresh-out-of-college Kurt Anderson wrote this hugely enjoyable book in which he took a look -- sometimes seriously, sometimes hilariously -- at the quintessential things of their type. Hard to find, but a real riot of a read.

[Tamra]

Even though it's proto-Spy and it was probably hilarious in 1980, it really hasn't aged well.