Adam Gopnik

Bruce McCall

A Memoir

How Did I Get Here?

The World of Bruce McCall

All Meat Looks Like South America

David Letterman

The billionaire Russian “oiligarch” whose replica of Czar Alexander II’s yacht plies a vast man-made Crimean lake, brimming not with water but billions of gallons of petroleum from his own pipeline… The packaged-suttee mogul Sir Sith Ram Pramba, who sliced the top off Mount Everest and installed it on his terrace atop a Park Avenue apartment building… The heir to a California railroad spike fortune who uses a private cross-country tunnel, assembled from giant redwoods laid end to end, for 120-mph runs in cars from his exotic équipe between San Francisco and New York… The vast Montana lodge where Gulfstreams land in the living room and an ex-CIA drone ferries fresh casks of Côtes du Rhône along the three-mile route between the wine cellar and the dining hall… The unsinkable forty-room polystyrene iceberg cum floating vacation retreat where Claude Ste. Nervous, the Quebec Styrofoam king, cruises the Arctic Ocean in high summer and, riding on his tamed polar bear, hunts for baby seals… These and dozens more of that new breed of swashbuckling post-millennial Midases dedicated to self-indulgent fun—whatever the cost in money, ecological mayhem, environmental devastation, and other such nuisances—are celebrated in This Land Was Made for You and Me (but Mostly Me), this lavishly illustrated chronicle that nobody expected or even wanted, but that Bruce McCall and David Letterman went ahead and created anyway.

Billionaires in the Wild

This Land Was Made for You and Me (But Mostly Me)

In a world where reading is reportedly dead, renowned humorist, illustrator, and New Yorker contributor Bruce McCall offers 50 inventive, outlandish, and wickedly entertaining things to do with all those excess books in 50 Things to Do with a Book. From starting a band, building a stairway to paradise, and saving your town from a flood to improving your marriage, entertaining guests, or killing a mockingbird, the options presented in 50 Things to Do with a Book are brilliant, visionary, ironic, and absurd.

(Now That Reading Is Dead)

50 Things to Do with a Book

From his hardscrabble post-World War II Ontario childhood and coming of age to Mad Men-era New York City and the creative pinnacle of advertising, to the hallowed halls of Saturday Night Live and The New Yorker, Bruce McCall’s personal and creative journey is stunningly honest, bittersweet, and, above all, inspiring. Beloved for his strikingly original and wickedly perceptive New Yorker covers, as well as his many Shouts and Murmurs, Bruce is a rare double threat as an artist and writer. Self-taught in both disciplines, his artistic world has captured the imagination of a loyal fan base that includes no less than David Letterman (whom he coauthored a book with) and other satire aficionados. Pulling no punches, How Did I Get Here? chronicles the evolution of his artistic genius as well as his journey from gifted childhood scribbler to passionate automobile enthusiast, a hobby that took him to the heights of the Detroit and Manhattan advertising worlds. His long-held passion for drawing and writing, which mostly lay dormant during his Mad Men days, reemerged later in life as he left the realm of advertising for the world of arts and letters, most notably at the National Lampoon, as a writer for Saturday Night Live in its first incarnation, and then of course at The New Yorker, as well as other Conde Nast magazines, such as Vanity Fair. His is an unorthodox life and career path, traversing through worlds that have now become iconic, giving us rich first-hand insight into Bruce's unique creative development and process, and providing a rare window into both the highs and the lows that define an artist's career and life. With wit, candor, and cover illustrations showcasing Bruce's storied career, Bruce McCall’s memoir will charm his many fans and anyone who knows and loves the places and eras he describes so well.

Bruce McCall

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