Brunch Is Hell

How to Save the World by Throwing a Dinner Party

By: Brendan Francis Newnam, Rico Gagliano

Narrated by: Brendan Francis Newnam, Rico Gagliano

Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

A call to arms against BRUNCH...and a how-to guide for fighting back, from the hosts of the hit podcast and public radio show The Dinner Party Download.

Society is under threat. The culprit? Brunch. Not merely a forum for overpriced eggs, brunch is a leisure-time-squandering hellscape, embodying all that is soul-killing and alienating about modern life.

How to fight back? By throwing dinner parties - the cornerstone of civilized society!

Dinner parties - where friends new and old share food, debate ideas, and boldly build hangovers together. If we revive the fading art of throwing dinner parties the world will be better off, and our country might heal its wounds of endless division... all without having to wait in a nine-hour line to eat toast.

To that end, Brunch Is Hell takes hesitant hosts through every phase of throwing a great dinner party, from guest list to subpoena. Loaded with wit, celebrity advice, and tongue-in-cheek humor - plus sincere insights about how humans can be more generous to each other - Brunch Is Hell is a spirited guide to restoring civility, in the best-selling tradition of Adulting, Amy Sedaris' I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, and the Bible.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 Brendan Francis Newnam and Rico Gagliano (P)2017 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"Our fearless heroes offer a book full of the secret thoughts we all harbor about entertaining. It's social venting with real solutions - read: advice you'd want to use - and a heavy helping of humor." (Lizzie Post, author of Emily Post's Etiquette, 19th edition)

Little bit funny, little bit real

I actually took notes on this audiobook, especially about how to usher a great conversation along—radio guys are great at that. There’s also some ridiculous “advice” that’s meant to be funny. Some aspects haven’t aged well and feel more for the just-out-of-college crowd than a regular adult. Also, rich people?

Well-written, informative, entertaining!

My title says it all. I LOVED DPD, and LOVED this book. It's become my Bible for hosting. Thank you, Brendan and Rico.

Love the dpd, but.....

Almost didn’t make it through the first hour. We get it, you don’t like brunch and after hearing the 60 minutes of complaints and dictating on why you think brunch is bad, I feel I like brunch even more than I did to begin with. I listened to every episode of the dinner party download to hear about your experiences on food, movies, music, interviews, and great story telling. Not telling what is good or bad like a far right or far left political type.

Delicious

Why is this book so gratifying? I don’t know but I loved every minute. As sparkling as the best dinner party conversation I’ve had, this book is a favorite just as entertainment. Throw on that solid opinions about small talk and building a guest list and playlist etc, plus the stirring call-to-arms, I will listen again for sure and will try out the podcast. I did put some parts on stereo for my middle-schooler because the book is ingenious but tried to avoid the language and references to orgies.

Fresh and fun, if not wholly original

Fresh and fun, if not wholly original. The actual substance of the authors' case is a bit of a stretch to make an entire book out of (I got the main takeaways by listening to their interview as guests on another podcast). However, their prose is clever and the hosting tips are useful. Definitely inspired to throw a dinner party now!