Wry martinis

Buckley's frequent New Yorker contributions to the back-page "Shouts and Murmurs" column have been a regular source of hilarity: The Pope's appearance on Oprah to promote his book; letters of recommendation for O. J. Simpson's New York condo application; a review of Peter Benchley's new book, Gills, about a vengeful Dolly Varden trout; the starship Enterprise's most daring and difficult assignment - programming its VCR; and several dozen other delightful New Yorker parodies, satires, and pastiches are all collected here. Buckley has occasionally been the source of controversy, as when he…