A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020) (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780316558792)

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice: 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.

Author: David Sedaris
ISBN-10: 0316558796
ISBN-13: 9780316558792
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Language: English
Published: 10/05/2021
Pages: 576
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.63lbs
Size: 9.13h x 5.91w x 1.65d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2021 pg. 23
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2021
Publishers Weekly 08/23/2021
Booklist 09/01/2021 pg. 22
Library Journal 10/01/2021 pg. 81

About the Author

David Sedaris is the author of eleven previous books, including, most recently, The Best of Me, Calypso and Theft by Finding. 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.