Influential and infamous author and journalist William F Buckley delivers wit and wisdom in this hilarious political gift book. Like most magazines, American publication the National Review has always published letters from readers, but in 1965, the editors decided that certain letters merited different treatment - either because of the distinction of the authors, the skill with which they were phrased; or else their simple outrageousness. So there began to appear a second column, called Notes and Asides , in which letters were personally answered by the editor, quintessential conservative William F Buckley.Occasionally the column printed letters he had written to others as well. The selections in the book, culled from four decades of columns, include exchanges with such luminaries as Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Auberon Waugh, John Kenneth Galbraith and many others. There are also hilarious exchanges with ordinary readers, as well as letters from Buckley to various organisations and government agencies.