A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020)

by David Sedaris

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Picking up where Theft by Finding left off, a new set of laugh-out-loud diaries from the essayist. Now that we have a handle on Sedaris growing up, we see in these entries the sardonic writer being discovered and launching his now-famous (or infamous) career. His biting humor works whether he speaks about the mundane or the political. After reading it, you'll find just how much has changed in the world.

A collection of diary entries by David Sedaris, spanning the years 2003 to 2020.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316301183
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	848
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

David Sedaris is the author of thirteen books, including Happy-Go-Lucky, A Carnival of Snackery, and The Best of Me. 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, the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.

Hometown:

London, England

Date of Birth:

December 26, 1956

Place of Birth:

Johnson City, New York

Education:

B.F.A., School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1987

Editorial Reviews

Praise for A Carnival of Snackery:

“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.”—Rachel Rosenblit, Washington Post

“Deeply 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 Review

“Uproarious… a must for Sedaris fans.”—Lesley Kennedy, CNN

“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

“A rich trove for hardcore Sedaris fans.”—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Theft by Finding:

“Sedaris is no ordinary diarist. He’s more like a private detective, sneaking around and capturing his subjects in moments when they think no one is looking.”—Fiona Maazel, O, The Oprah Magazine

“Finding 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 Times

“Sedaris 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 Globe

“Perhaps his most intimate book… Sedaris has become a reigning master of crystalline social commentary and blisteringly humorous self-reflection.”—Lauren Christensen, Los Angeles Times

“Randomly 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 Press

From the Publisher

2021-07-15
The second volume of diaries by Sedaris (after Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002), who navigates the early 21st century wealthier but still bemused.

The flashpoints of the modern era—the Iraq War, Ferguson, Trump, Covid-19—pop up throughout these entries, but mainly so the author can sail past them with his usual irreverence. For example: “When the pandemic hit, my first thought wasn’t Oh, those poor dying peoplebut What about my airline status?” His bottomless capacity to make everything about him doesn’t read as selfishness or ignorance, though; as with all good comics, the particulars of his life are stand-ins for everybody’s foibles and frustrations. Traveling the world for readings, Sedaris takes note of every culture’s peculiarities, from spitting on the street in Tokyo to offensive insults to language quirks—e.g., Tagalog is like “English on quaaludes.” Sedaris treats his own life as a kind of foreign country, too. After moving from his longtime home in France to England, he began his hobby of picking up litter (documented in Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls), and the reactions of his neighbors, not to mention the trash itself, provide comic fodder. Family matters were trickier during this period: His troubled sister, Tiffany, killed herself, and his elderly but resilient father still treated him like a failure. Because Sedaris traveled all over the world during this stretch, the tone and form of the diaries shift; he’s sometimes glib, sometimes contemplative, sometimes content just to catalog funny stuff he overhears. So for better or worse, he’s a humorist who’ll go anywhere. This book contains one of the best jokes about the Crucifixion you’re likely to hear, along with a few subpar quips: “To honor the death of Marcel Marceau I observed a minute of silence."

A rich trove for hardcore Sedaris fans, though no more personally revealing than his well-shaped essays.

Kirkus Reviews