Lists

22 of Your Picks for the Best Political Satire

María Cristina García lives in New York with her favorite spouse, her favorite toddler, her favorite cat, and her second-favorite cat. When not ranking members of her household, she's catching up on Supergirl, strumming her mandolin, or trying to beat the clock on her library loans. Twitter: @MeowyCristina Blog: MeowyCristina.com

This giveaway is sponsored by Chuck Palahniuk’s Adjustment Day, on sale now from W. W. Norton.

People pass the word only to those they trust most: Adjustment Day is coming. They’ve been reading a mysterious book and memorizing its directives. They are ready for the reckoning.

In his first novel in four years, Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk does what he does best: skewer the absurdities in our society. Smug, geriatric politicians bring the nation to the brink of a third world war; working-class men dream of burying the elites. When Adjustment Day arrives, it fearlessly makes real the logical conclusion of every separatist fantasy, alternative fact, and conspiracy theory lurking in the American psyche.


Satire is vital. The technique shocks us into recognizing the absurdity of the damaging norms we’ve become used to. It makes us laugh, but it should also make us change. So we asked you to tell us what some of your favorite political satires are. Here’s a smattering of what you shared:

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by P. J. O’Rourke

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht

The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction by “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The People’s Manifesto by Mark Thomas

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Our Dumb Century: The Onion Presents 100 Years of Headlines from America’s Finest News Source by “The Onion”

The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

The Birds by Aristophanes

Boomsday by Christopher Buckley

It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

MacBird! By Barbara Garson

I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert

In the Red by  Mark Tavener

The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh