[2][3] He is known for writing God Is My Broker, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, The White House Mess, No Way to Treat a First Lady, Wet Work, Florence of Arabia, Boomsday, Supreme Courtship, Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir, and The Judge Hunter.

After receiving a classical education at Portsmouth Abbey School,[4] Buckley worked his way around the world as a deckhand on a Norwegian tramp freighter.

The experience was the basis for his first bestselling non-fiction book, Steaming to Bamboola: The World of a Tramp Freighter, published in 1982.

In summer and fall 2008, Christopher Buckley wrote the back-page column for National Review, the conservative magazine founded by his father.

In October 2008, Buckley wrote a column endorsing Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, choosing to have it published in The Daily Beast to avoid backlash from National Review readers.