Truisms

A unique work in Theroux's canon, Truisms distills a lifetime of observation and reading into thousands of rhyming quatrains, a Rubaiyat for our times. It is a compendium of universal truths, witty aphorisms, personal opinions, wise maxims, sardonic insults, cranky complaints, abrupt advice, and believe-it-or-not factoids that only he could assemble. Beginning with a well-informed history of apothegms and epigrams, Theroux states, "A truism provides a way of seeing by way of the compendious...