A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Finalist for the Audie Award in Humor
There’s no right way to keep a diary, but if there’s an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it.
If it’s navel-gazing you’re after, you’ve come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. There’s a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party—lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.
These diaries remind you that you once really hated George W. Bush, and that not too long ago, Donald Trump was just a harmless laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in hotel dining rooms and odd Japanese inns, records it. The entries here reflect an ever-changing background—new administrations, new restrictions on speech and conduct. What you can say at the start of the book, you can’t by the end. At its best, A Carnival of Snackery is a sort of sampler: the bitter and the sweet. Some entries are just what you wanted. Others you might want to spit discreetly into a napkin.
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"Mesmerizing and jolting… Sedaris’ shrewdly sketched world travelogue, hilarious anecdotes, and frank reflections on loved ones, and life's myriad absurdities and cruelties major and minor, make for a delectably sardonic, rueful, and provocative chronicle… fans don't want to miss a word."
— Donna Seaman, Booklist
“The diaries are as clear, direct and funny as his essays…[Sedaris] has such a gift for illuminating small things.”
— New York Times Book Review“Sedaris is a singularly talented humorist who lands acerbic zingers with the calculating precision of a kamikaze pilot.”
— Washington Post“Picking up where Theft by Finding left off, a new set of laugh-out-loud diaries from the essayist…After reading it, you'll find just how much has changed in the world.”
— Barnes&Noble.com“Mesmerizing and jolting…a delectably sardonic, rueful, and provocative chronicle.”
— BooklistDeeply satisfying… the diaries are as clear, direct and funny as his essays… [Sedaris] has such a gift for illuminating small things.
— Liana Finck, New York Times Book ReviewUproarious… a must for Sedaris fans.
— Lesley Kennedy, CNNA rich trove for hardcore Sedaris fans.
— Kirkus ReviewsFinding meaning and humor in life’s interstices… is Sedaris’s unique genius as a writer… What is fascinating about this book is that narrative coherence is not apparent from one sentence or paragraph to the next but emerges through the sequence of entries over many years.
— David Takami, Seattle TimesSedaris fans will thrill to this opportunity to poke around in the writer’s personal diaries, which he has faithfully kept for four decades and used as raw material for his hilarious nonfiction as well as his performances.
— Paul S. Makishima, Boston GlobePerhaps his most intimate book… Sedaris has become a reigning master of crystalline social commentary and blisteringly humorous self-reflection.
— Lauren Christensen, Los Angeles TimesRandomly open to any page and you’ll find a gem… Sedaris’s gift is to make you stop and think one moment and laugh out loud the next.
— Rob Merrill, Associated PressBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
David Sedaris is the author of a dozen books, including four that made the #1 New York Times bestsellers list. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.