2024 the best of me david sedaris review

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(as of Nov 16, 2024 07:10:09 UTC - Details)

An Audie Award Winner

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso.

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.

But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

Reviewer: Alana Winner
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good easy fun summer read from famous humorists.
Review: I would recommend this book to people who liked his previous older works. It is not as gritty as some of his works but has some gentle laugh-out-loud points to it and astute ways of looking at life. The writer has a great author's voice.

Reviewer: Moore
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: It’s a book!
Review: Enjoyed the array of stories- I read this one at the beach, sometimes a tough read emotionally, but damn this man is funny.

Reviewer: Mal Gormley
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Quirky & Funny-ish
Review: This was not my first Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day was my intro and it a great read. Corduroy fell flat and I didn't read any more for years, until seeingHappy Go Lucky reviewed in The Times. This book is subtle and sad in many ways, but then I'd bust out laughing like the good old days. I'm gonna have to catch up.

Reviewer: Panama Naomi
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: great
Review: Another wonderful, touching and fun David Sedaris book. Love all of his books because he doesn’t try to hide the nastiness and pettiness of family..

Reviewer: Avid Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Do you know where I can buy "gunderpants"?
Review: Happy-Go-Lucky is another thought provoking and laugh out loud hit from David Sedaris. Drawing on his experiences during/after COVID and the death of his 98 year old father, this collection of stories shows the foibles and complexity of humanity with the humor and compassion.

Reviewer: Yolanda S. Bean
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Another Wonderful Collection!
Review: David Sedaris has been one of my very favorite authors since I first picked up my college roommate's copy of [book:Naked|4138]. I am always so excited for new material from him - and though two of these essays here had already appeared in The New Yorker, this collection still has plenty of new stuff. The decline and death of his father, Lou, really dominates this collection - along with the pandemic. There are, as always, laugh-out-loud moments, clever turns-of-phrase and intimate candor that is so intrinsically his style. I always enjoy listening to Sedaris read his work - just as I enjoy reading it aloud myself to share with others. I actually listened to this one, as well as read the majority out loud to my aunt. The gunderpants especially got a good laugh. And this was the last book she heard the ending to, as well, so I know that my own grief will always be tied up with this book. He really is my favorite essayist and as always, I am eager to read his next collection!

Reviewer: Timothy Haugh
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Humor in Difficult Time
Review: Though I find his work uneven, I am a great admirer of Mr. Sedaris. I know when I read one of his books, I am going to laugh out loud on multiple occasions, and this book was no exception. As a writer who has never been able to write funny, I find myself often in awe of those who can do this.The topics of the essays here are focused on the pandemic and the loss of his father. It doesn’t seem like good fodder for humor, but there is plenty of it here. I am especially taken by what appears to be good relationships with his siblings, despite their typical dysfunction, which is what makes it funny. And there is also his relationship with his long-suffer partner, Hugh. Of course, as always, some of the humor misses but the good outweighs the bad by a solid degree here.I was surprised to learn recently that my own father reads and enjoys Mr. Sedaris. At first, I thought it a strange thing for him to like, but I realized that he likely finds the family interactions as funny as I do. My father and my tastes rarely seem to coincide. In this case, I think it adds an extra recommendation to my own.

Reviewer: Deborah Middleton
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: funny! and separate chapters
Review: Great book for reading on a plane or waiting for appointments. The chapters are only loosely related so you can pick this up and put it down easily.Sedaris is his usual delightful combination of self deprecating while also looking down on many of his fellow human beings. Like most of his books this is humorous and also touching. The honest way he talks about his father’s death is engaging and the recent Covid19 lockdowns along with the BLM protests reinforced a lot of feelings I had, but might not express so well.

Reviewer: Kelly Warrington
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Great read all the way, real life from a different or maybe similar point of view, definitely laughed in every chapter.

Reviewer: London reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Just an incredibly funny writer

Reviewer: od
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: After all the positive comments I expected a lot. Read the first three chapters and was disappointed. Not even a smile came on my face. It’s not even interesting or written in a beautiful language. More like an essay from a teenager

Reviewer: Amazon Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: For personal entertainment

Reviewer: J. Fox
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Not his best book but funny and entertaining all the same!