Written during the 1960s, Williams's Them Poems were so widely diffused into folk culture that they are often presumed to be another product of that prolific author "anonymous." Here they are for the first time collected and selected by their creator, Mason Williams. Them Poems is a bold, brassy collection that captures the free and easy antics of the 1960s. Smart, rhythmic stanzas have readers snickering through each knee-slapping stanza. Mason Williams is perhaps most widely known as a composer and musician. He has recorded more than a dozen albums, including the single Classical Gas which won three Grammys in 1968. Twenty years later a single, Country Idyll, from his album Classical Gas was nominated for a Grammy. The album went gold by selling over 500 thousand copies. In addition to his pop concerts, his Of Time & the River Flowing, Symphonic Bluegrass and Christmas conerts have been performed by more than forty symphony orchestras. Mr. Williams has written over a dozen books of prose, poetry, and music including The Mason Williams Reading Matter and Flavors (Doubleday), The Mason Williams FCC Rapport (Liverite), and a music book Classical Gas -- The Music of Mason Williams (CPP Belwin). As a comedy writer, he was a prime creative force in CBS television's controversial Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and in 1980 he was the head comedy writer for NBC's Saturday Night Live.

“Fascinating. . . . Williams tells the story of La Guardia and Roosevelt with insight and elegance.”—Edward Glaeser, New York Times Book Review

"A Manhattan Institute for Policy Research book"--T.p. verso. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 167-173.

The New York Times Bestseller! The story of an outcast boy, his eccentric dad, and the scary underground world they discover through secret TUNNELS.14-year-old Will Burrows has little in common with his strange, dysfunctional family. In fact, the only bond he shares with his eccentric father is a passion for archaeological excavation. So when Dad mysteriously vanishes, Will is compelled to dig up the truth behind his disappearance. He unearths the unbelievable: a secret subterranean society. "The Colony" has existed unchanged for a century, but it's no benign time capsule of a bygone era--because the Colony is ruled by a cultlike overclass, the Styx. Before long--before he can find his father--Will is their prisoner....