Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Sedaris can take the most mundane task, like buying new underwear, and make it seem like the most momentous endeavor anyone could hope to pursue. Even walking down the street and encountering a passing dog is cause for—pick one—wonder, outrage, delight, all of the above. In his latest essay collection, following Happy-Go-Lucky (2022), Sedaris embraces new travel adventures (lions pooping in Africa) and revisits old emotional upheavals (mom, dad, neighbors, boyfriends). He rises to the occasion of caregiver, reluctantly in some cases, extravagantly in others. Strangers both charm and confound him. Ditto celebrities and authors he encounters both in real life and on the page. What makes Sedaris so engaging as an essayist is his elevation of the commonplace to a state of exoticism. With his laconic delivery, Sedaris lures the reader into believing that the topic under discussion might be unremarkable, a you-and-me-in-this-together moment. But then, given Sedaris’ worldview and world weariness, eventually a knotty twist or spicy dash is delivered with the realization that Sedaris’ land is unparalleled, and its people are peerless.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Sedaris fans will be queuing for this, craving new expressions of his signature wit and frankness.

Publishers Weekly
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Humorist Sedaris (Happy-Go-Lucky) returns with a funny and heartfelt essay collection on friendship, family, and aging. Snapshots of his life with Hugh, his partner of more than 35 years, include his reluctance to assume the caretaker role after Hugh had hip-replacement surgery (he decries “the puffy, foot-tall toilet seat” Hugh needed after the operation, calling it “a specter of death no less chilling than the Grim Reaper himself”). The couple’s humorous dynamic is further showcased in “A Long Way Home,” which chronicles the time Sedaris invited a stranger on a seven-hour drive to keep Hugh company so Sedaris could lay in the back and indulge in his Duolingo addiction. Moments of sadness also bubble to the surface, such as the discovery that his childhood best friend, whom he hadn’t spoken to in 47 years, had died of throat cancer. The news leads Sedaris to reflect on the memories they shared and, even though they grew apart after a painful incident, conclude that his life is “different now, diminished” knowing his former friend is gone. Elsewhere, he discusses his eccentric family, his world travels, and unfortunate encounters with strangers. Throughout, Sedaris’s wit and keen awareness of life’s absurdities are on full display. These essays are among the best of his career. (May)

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In his 14th collection, our premier comic essayist does what he does best. The 28 essays collected here, most previously unpublished, along with some familiar to readers of theNew Yorker, are a welcome return to form for the much-awarded and much-loved humorist. His last two collections,Calypso (2018) andHappy-Go-Lucky (2022), were shadowed by the deaths of both his parents and his sister, Tiffany, the pandemic, and revelations about sexual abuse. These essays find the author back to thinking about his signature material: the little weirdnesses of living; his relationship with his husband, Hugh; the odd things people say and do; manners, bad and good; his travels and observations thereof; his quirky friendships; and his practice of walking 10,000 Apple Watch–monitored steps per day—all in his signature key of delightfully petty and wonderfully peevish. He might be the only person who jokes about how much fun it is to be obscenely wealthy, as in an essay where he reveals that he has a Paul Klee, a Franz Kline, and an Alexander Calder in the office where he writes; another where he buys a $2,400 cashmere cape for his sister, Gretchen, during a cancer scare, planning to inherit it back after her death; and several others in which his credit card appears as a deus ex machina to slice through various predicaments. A few essays dig back into his already-well-excavated childhood, including what is likely the sweetest essay he has ever written about his mother, “Cool Mom.” Here he applies seven principles he found in an article online (“A cool mom lets her kids see her try new things and take healthy risks”) to arrive at an emotional conclusion of rare poignancy. An essay recalling his teen volunteer job in a Raleigh, North Carolina, mental asylum makes one wonder if his hometown might someday consider erecting what would surely be an adorable and pilgrimage-worthy monument. Sedaris remains a national treasure. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.