You Should Worry Says John Henry

John Henry is the kind of guy who says exactly what everyone's thinking but nobody dares to voice. In this collection of sharp, irreverent essays, he tackles modern life circa 1916 with brutal honesty and endless comic energy. Whether he's dissecting the madness of learning to dance the tango, explaining why automobiles are instruments of chaos, or offering catastrophic advice on dieting, John Henry strips the pretension from everyday existence with devastating effect. His observations on love are particularly brutal: he suspects the whole thing is a conspiracy engineered by clothing merchants and florists. On servants, photography, and the horror of being caught laughing in public, he speaks with the confidence of a man who has never once worried about being liked. The prose crackles with early 20th-century slang and a working-class directness that feels startling even now. This is comfort reading for anyone who's ever wanted to tell society exactly where it can put its etiquette.