SMILE WHEN YOU'RE LYING: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer

[Thompson] knows the score and he tallies it accurately. ... A dead-on demolition job. ... The book is a savagely funny act of revenge. --The New York Times

Impassioned, funny, and uniquely honest. --Esquire

Consistently irreverent, Thompson is wickedly entertaining ... reminiscent of Chuck Klosterman and David Foster Wallace. ... The unvarnished reality in these pages might just make you more eager than ever to hit the road. --San Francisco Chronicle

If there is such a pastime as extreme tourism, Chuck Thompson is surely its guru. --Boston Globe

Thompson is the real thing, a travel writer in the sense that Mark Twain or Hunter S. Thompson was, and Redmond O'Hanlon is. He's a travel writer like Anthony Bourdain is a food writer. He's a travel writer for people who don't much like travel writing. --The Oregonian

A rare victim's-eye view into the world of travel marketing and the nervous, unmoored corporate weenies who populate it. ... fascinating reading, in a plane-crash sort of way. --Washington Post

Smile When You're Lying could do for the travel industry what The Tipping Point did for the tipping point industry. --Joe Queenan

(Thompson's) prose is quick and witty; it's like sitting down over a beer with the most experienced traveler you'll ever meet. --Aspen Times Weekly

My three favorite travel writers of all time are Robert Louis Stevenson, Graham Greene, and Chuck Thompson. Smile When You're Lying not only tells the truth about the travel-writing racket, it gets to the heart of some of the travel industry's best-kept secrets. --Kinky Friedman

More than confessions of a veteran gallivanter ... an indictment of those who would prettify the world ... full of trenchant truisms. --Los Angeles Times

An aggressively funny account of the world from an acerbic, energetic professional traveler who tells it like he sees it and has no reservations about sharing his stockpile of outrageous (mis)adventures and advice.... At his best, this Thompson will remind readers of Hunter S.--provocative and thoroughly engaging, with a manic liveliness. --Kirkus Reviews

Thompson's weapons are wit, a well-oiled subversive reflex and a defiantly unbuttoned prose style. --The New York Observer

Vivid and ribald.... If all Thompson was aiming for had been caustic observations about the industry he knows from the inside out, the book would have been an amusing but limited experience. But Thompson weaves his take on the travel racket and the damage it does into an engagingly personal narrative about his own nomadic life... --Publishers Weekly

Thought-provoking ... laughing at [Thompson's] stories caused pain. --Salt Lake Tribune

Bitingly funny ... as much as Thompson loves to play the curmudgeon, a reader can tell that through it all, he still loves to travel, despite, or perhaps because of, all the challenges. --The Columbus Dispatch

A great storyteller with an unusual tolerance level for adventure. --The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)

Witty prose entertains as it educates...the perfect read for a long plane ride. --Seattle Magazine

Highly recommended. --Calgary Herald

Fascinating and frequently hilarious, thanks to Thompson's wicked sense of humor. --Portland Mercury

Reading Thompson is like listening to a buddy who shoots from the hip. Although readers may not always agree with Thompson's conclusions ... they will recognize an authentic voice on the subject of travel when they encounter it. --Booklist

Thought provoking political commentary ... will keep you entertained even as it makes you think. --Ramblingtraveler.com

The very first editor in chief of Travelocity magazine, Chuck Thompson's work has appeared in Maxim, The Atlantic, Esquire, National Geographic Adventure, and Escape, among many others. He has played in a variety of bands, and worked as an ESL instructor, DJ, and assistant sergeant of arms in the Alaska House of Representatives.