A Carnival of Snackery

Diaries: Volume Two

David Sedaris

$34.99

Paperback

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English

Little Brown
12 October 2021

Biography; Autobiography: general

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 jumping 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 a harmless laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in fine 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.

Praise for Theft by Finding, the first volume of David Sedaris's diaries

'The writing here is funnier, (even) sharper . . . There isn't a dull word among these pages' India Knight, Sunday Times

'Could there be a more delightful American import than the memoirist David Sedaris? Not since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich have we inherited something so sweet and comforting yet so wickedly naughty' The Times

By: David Sedaris
Imprint: Little Brown
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 232mm, Width: 154mm, Spine: 40mm
Weight: 700g
ISBN: 9781408707876
ISBN 10: 140870787X
Pages: 576
Publication Date: 12 October 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today. David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames and his most recent book, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, each of which became an immediate bestseller. The audio version of Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls was a Grammy nominee for Best Spoken Word Album. He is the author of the New York Times-bestselling collection of fables entitled Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Wicked Bestiary (with illustrations by Ian Falconer). He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. Sedaris's pieces appear regularly in the New Yorker and have twice been included in 'The Best American Essays'. There are a total of ten million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into twenty-nine languages.

Reviews for A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries: Volume Two

Grumpy, bitchy, sympathetic, sad and welcoming all at once * Guardian * A rich trove for hardcore Sedaris fans * Kirkus * The humorist's eye for the peculiar is as sharp as ever * The Times * Sedaris' evolution will be fascinating to longtime fans; they'll love these insights into his life. * Washington Independent Review of Books * The second volume of the American humorist's diaries is full of his trademark wit * Observer * Sedaris is a singularly talented humorist who lands acerbic zingers with the calculating precision of a kamikaze pilot... Throughout the colorful, caustic yarns that fill his best-selling essay and story collections, he's maintained league-of-his-own status by staying light on his feet: Just when you're expecting a wry jab, he clocks you with a poignant gut punch. * Washington Post * Like Sedaris's exquisitely crafted personal essays, his diary entries explore odd hairstyles, blandly aggressive post office interactions, airport bureaucracy and the non sequiturs of small talk: micro-topics he elevates to their own pedestals of meaning and humor. * New York Times Editors' Choice * Uproarious... a must for Sedaris fans. * CNN *