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Calypso: Essays Audiobook, by David Sedaris Play Audiobook Sample

Calypso: Essays Audiobook

Calypso: Essays Audiobook, by David Sedaris Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: David Sedaris Publisher: Little, Brown & Company Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 4.50 hours at 1.5x Speed 3.38 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: May 2018 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781478964162

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

21

Longest Chapter Length:

26:34 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

03:36 minutes

Average Chapter Length:

19:00 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

19

Other Audiobooks Written by David Sedaris: > View All...

Publisher Description

David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.

If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny--it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best.

Download and start listening now!

"David sedaris is the most clever funny put you in a good mood author. Hes the best there's nothing he's written that I have not enjoyed. This is one of his funniest stories ever!!!!! YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED He rocksvTEt"

— Kwtfb (5 out of 5 stars)

Quotes

  • “Sedaris shines in tales of family, loss, and a favorite turtle…[which] Sedaris’ wry voice enhances.”

    — USA Today
  • “Grapples seriously with themes of family, mortality, and illness. As always, his very essence seeps through the pages like an intoxicating cloud.”

    — New York Times Book Review
  • “The king of the humorous essay returns…Sedaris fans will find plenty of familiar delights: His misanthropic charms and wry wit are as delightful as ever, even if some of the subject matter has changed….The audiobook version of Calypso will be the perfect travel companion during road trips and getaways this spring and beyond.”

    — New York magazine
  • “Sedaris’ new story collection is earthy, to say the least—concerned with all the gross things that happen as we live and age but also full of wonder at his life and appreciation for his family.”

    — NPR
  • "Chock-full of Sedaris’ signature brand of laugh-out-loud humor, interlaced with moments of introspection and melancholy that will hit you like an arrow to the heart.”

    — Shondaland
  • “Sedaris hasn’t lost his capacity for bemused observations of the people he encounters…But bad news has sharpened the author’s humor, and this book is defined by a persistent, engaging bafflement over how seriously or unseriously to take life when it’s increasingly filled with Trump and funerals. Sedaris at his darkest—and his best.”

    — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
  • “Twenty-one essays largely about family bonds and getting older in this hilarious yet tender volume…Fans and newcomers alike will be richly rewarded by this sidesplitting collection.”

    — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  • “The latest essay collection by humorist David Sedaris humorist is a meditation on aging. It’s a sardonic one at that, that he narrates himself in his quintessential tongue-in-cheek fashion. It’s a good thing he does because the listener gets the sense that only Sedaris could balance the witty observations alongside the heartrending sadness of life…Fans of Sedaris, who may well be in the middle of their own lives by now, will listen along, laughing, and perhaps wiping away a few tears.”

    — AudioFile
  • This book allows us to observe not just the nimble-mouthed elf of Sedaris's previous work, but a man in his seventh decade expunging his darker secrets and contemplating mortality...The brilliance of David Sedaris's writing is that his very essence, his aura, seeps through the pages of his books like an intoxicating cloud, mesmerizing us so that his logic becomes ours...The geeks really do inherit the earth.

    — Alan Cumming, New York Times Book Review
  • The king of the humorous essay returns with a brand-new collection -- his first in five years. Sedaris fans will find plenty of familiar delights: His misanthropic charms and wry wit are as delightful as ever, even if some of the subject matter has changed. From his new vacation home on the coast of North Carolina, he writes about the concerns of health and aging, treating us to a story about the persnickety doctor who refused to let him keep a noncancerous tumor that he'd planned to feed to a snapping turtle once removed. We can only assume that the audiobook version of Calypso will be the perfect travel companion during road trips and getaways this spring and beyond.

    — Maris Kreizman, New York Magazine
  • Age and family occupy beloved humorist Sedaris's latest collection of essays. His observations feel sharper and often darker than in previous collections, as he ponders the inevitable breakdown of the human body, the shame attendant with illness and age, the nature of addiction, and the eccentricities of his family. Though middle age may have made his shades of gray blacker, the wit and incisiveness that make Sedaris much-adored remain.

    — Lauren Hubbard, Harper's Bazaar
  • Honest, reflective, and even tender...Eloquent and silly, Sedaris' collection could probably find unshakable life even in the dust kitties under the bed...He gets you laughing even as he gently turns you toward the darkness we all must face.

    — Caroline Leavitt, San Francisco Chronicle
  • David Sedaris's new essay collection is the sharpest retort to anyone who thinks they know what our favorite curmudgeonly humorist will be up to next. His charming observational humor is still the engine, but there's nothing frivolous about it. In the wake of his sister's suicide, Sedaris grapples poignantly and satisfyingly (and yes, often hilariously) with death, the aging body, and just how far the bonds of family can stretch.

    — Alex Postman, Conde Nast Traveler
  • David Sedaris's biggest strength as an essayist and a humorist lies in his remarkable power of observation, of detecting the humor and pathos is the everyday conversations most of us don't register. His attention and wit are as incisive as ever, but Sedaris brings a stronger sense of self to the pages of Calypso...It's both warmer and bleaker than any Sedaris that's come before.

    — Laura Adamczyk and Caitlin Penzeymoog, AV Club
  • If there's one thing you can count on in life, it's Sedaris to leave you giggling on the beach in both humor and horror. His latest collection of stories is a bit more serious than his previous, but even when the Sedaris clan is at its worst, the humorist reveals their antics with his characteristic wit in a way that manages to both soften and sharpen the dark truths behind the stories he tells.

    — Allison McNearney, Daily Beast
  • Sedaris is widely considered is widely considered America's leading humorist, and his new book Calypso does nothing but burnish that reputation.

    — Nic Brown, Garden & Gun
  • Laugh-out-loud funny, true and introspective.

    — Holly Silva, St Louis Post-Dispatch
  • With this tenth book, Sedaris demonstrates yet again what makes him the best American humorist writing today: a remarkable ability to combine the personal with the political, the mundane with the profane, slime with sublime, and hilarity with heart.

    — Heller McAlpin, NPR
  • The beauty of David Sedaris's personality---and what keeps his readers coming back for best-selling book after best-selling book---is his unwavering dedication to a helter-skelter train of thought...Calypso is his most personal and open book yet, shedding light on his late sister's struggle with mental health, his mother's addiction, and his own experiences with the legalization of gay marriage, but it still finds plenty of room for laughs.

    — Seija Rankin, Entertainment Weekly
  • Calypso is the most family-centered of his books yet and, although much of it is very funny, it's also his most melancholy as it addresses aging and loss...it ranges across a number of other subjects as well, often with Sedaris's trademark off-center, self-deprecating humor.

    — Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
  • If you're ever stuck in an elevator or airport, just pray for David Sedaris to appear. Time passes quickly with this national treasure of a storyteller. Reading Calypso is like settling into a glorious beach vacation with the author, whose parents, siblings and longtime boyfriend, Hugh, feel like old friends to faithful readers...While Sedaris is laugh-out-loud funny in his brilliant, meandering way, it's his personal reflections that will stay with you.

    — Alice Cary, Bookpage

Awards

  • A New York Times Editor’s Choice of Books We Recommend This Month
  • A #1 New York Times bestseller
  • A Kirkus Reviews Pick of 12 Excellent Summer Reads
  • A USA Today Pick of Summer Beach Reads
  • An Audible Editors Top Pick for Road Trip Audiobooks
  • A #1 New York Times audio bestseller
  • Finalist for the 2018 Southern Book Prize for Nonfiction
  • Nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album
  • One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2018 in Nonfiction
  • A 2019 Audie Award Finalist for Audiobook of the Year
  • A 2019 Audie Award Finalist for Best Humor Narration
  • A BuzzFeed Books Pick of Audiobooks Better Than the Print Version

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About David Sedaris

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.