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Narrated by:
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David Rakoff
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By:
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David Rakoff
About this listen
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times best-selling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the commonsensical notion that you should always assume the worst, because you’ll never be disappointed.
In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant) audiobook, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won’t come true.
The audiobook ranges from the personal to the universal, combining stories from Rakoff’s reporting and accounts of his own experiences: The moment when being a tiny child no longer meant adults found him charming but instead meant other children found him a fun target; the perfect late evening in Manhattan when he was young and the city seemed to brim with such possibility that the street shimmered in the moonlight - as he drew closer he realized the streets actually flickered with rats in a feeding frenzy. He also weaves in his usual brand Oscar Wilde - worthy cultural criticism (the tragedy of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, for instance).
Whether he’s lacerating the musical Rent for its cutesy depiction of AIDS or dealing with personal tragedy, his sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will have you positively reveling in the power of negativity.
©2010 David Rakoff (P)2010 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Sure, I'll Join Your Cult
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Maria Bamford is a comedian’s comedian (an outsider among outsiders) and has forever fought to find a place to belong. From struggling with an eating disorder as a child of the 1980s, to navigating a career in the arts (and medical debt and psychiatric institutionalization), she has tried just about every method possible to not only be a part of the world, but to want to be a part of it. In Bamford’s “trademark blend of disarming intimacy and dark whimsy” (Publishers Weekly), Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult brings us on a quest to participate in something.
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Hilarious and sincere
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Happy-Go-Lucky
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Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
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Great except for an audio glitch
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Devout Fan Disappointed
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- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
David Rakoff's best-selling collection of autobiographical essays, Fraud, established him as one of today's funniest and most insightful writers. Now, in Don't Get Too Comfortable, Rakoff moves from the personal to the public, journeying into the land of unchecked plenty that is contemporary America. Rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly and wittily skewered.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH leaps cities and decades as Rakoff sings the song of an America whose freedoms can be intoxicating, or brutal. The characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty.
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By: David Rakoff
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Happy-Go-Lucky
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- Narrated by: David Sedaris
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most.
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-
Great except for an audio glitch
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By: David Sedaris
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
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Don't Start with this One
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Holidays on Ice
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Performance
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Story
David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favorites as the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); and what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow").
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Best When In SantaLand
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A Carnival of Snackery
- Diaries (2003-2020)
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Tracey Ullman?
- By Kelley R. on 10-05-21
By: David Sedaris
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Barrel Fever and Other Stories
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- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In David Sedaris' world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris' collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves.
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Be warned- Santaland Diaries is NOT included
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By: David Sedaris
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Theft by Finding
- Diaries (1977-2002)
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know.
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Don't hate me but...
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By: David Sedaris
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Me Talk Pretty One Day
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- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! - tells a most unconventional life story. With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. You can also listen to Sedaris in an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air.
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Subtly Funny Musings on Life Experiences
- By FanB14 on 09-03-12
By: David Sedaris
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Calypso
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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 it's 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 - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
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Excellent, as always
- By Ruthie on 05-31-18
By: David Sedaris
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Naked
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- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the current mania for the memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview, a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable.
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Not the whole book
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By: David Sedaris
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Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
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- Narrated by: David Sedaris
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives, a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.
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Sedaris is the gay Mark Twain.
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By: David Sedaris
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The Best of Me
- By: David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
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Almost No New Material
- By Lizardectomy on 11-05-20
By: David Sedaris
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
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Tibetan Peach Pie
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- By: Tom Robbins
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Internationally best-selling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long-awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become over the course of half a century a poet-interruptus, an air force weatherman, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counter-culture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.
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This isn't a book, it's a complete experience
- By David Shear on 05-31-14
By: Tom Robbins
Critic reviews
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must check out
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Story
LOVE, DISHONOR, MARRY, DIE, CHERISH, PERISH leaps cities and decades as Rakoff sings the song of an America whose freedoms can be intoxicating, or brutal. The characters' lives are linked to each other by acts of generosity or cruelty.
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David Rakoff's best-selling collection of autobiographical essays, Fraud, established him as one of today's funniest and most insightful writers. Now, in Don't Get Too Comfortable, Rakoff moves from the personal to the public, journeying into the land of unchecked plenty that is contemporary America. Rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly and wittily skewered.
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Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
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What listeners say about Half Empty
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- Adam
- 02-16-15
A wonderful book
Made more incredible and poignant by his untimely death. Hearing this back to back with Love dishonor marry die cherish perish a novel by really hammers home his wit and dark sense of the world
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- ferretk4
- 09-22-13
Witty, insightful, and darkly hilarious
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I already knew I liked David Rakoff's work from his contributions to This American Life; his essays here are even better. The longer format lets him stretch out with fantastic results. He is an astute observer of the world and a terrific writer, his use of language always inventive and interesting. The essays can be dark, which he addresses head-on in his first essay, about the need to temper the unwarranted optimism that is currently in fashion - but they leave you nodding in agreement and laughing. And example: when a friend asks him, "Don't you like ANYTHING?" he explains "I like EVERYTHING! ...I'm just also afraid of it." He then goes on to explain, among other things, that when he takes the subway under the water he pays attention to when the train passes the midway point in the tunnel, so that if some disaster occurs, "I'll know which direction to swim." Just good sense, really. (I'd compare the dark-but-hilarious tone to David Sedaris and Shalom Auslander; if you don't find them funny, then this probably isn't for you.)
Rakoff visits The Home of the Future (or some such) at Disney Land and scathingly dissects it (e.g. "The kitchen computer, like all omniscient, benevolent, but lacking-decision-making-ability machines, is female"); he visits Salt Lake City and seems unexpectedly charmed by the LDS church. You can't predict where he will go in these essays, but it's always somewhere good.
Audiobook is the ideal format for this book. Rakoff is a fantastic and hilarious narrator, absolutely the best person to read his coruscating sentences. You'll wish this book was longer - and, of course, that Rakoff was still around to grace us with his wit.
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- Lisa
- 11-22-10
Rakoff's best yet!
David Rakoff's writing and narration are delightful. I think this is the best of the three audio books he's published to date. Say yes to the power of negativity!
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- Fgu
- 11-23-16
File not playing
Can't play this book it's not working . How can I fix this? Thank you, federico
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- Cade
- 09-20-18
Wonderful series of essays read by the author.
He was not not well when this was recorded. He voice is weaker than in some of his earlier work. The
presentation was still very moving.
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- Maeghan
- 12-15-10
Even better heard than read
David Rakoff's reading is so strong that to listen to him read this book aloud is actually a richer experience than reading it to oneself. I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend it.
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- Laura
- 06-15-15
Lovely
Tied together so elegantly...
(And that's all I would say, as it concisely sums it up, but audible has a word minimum)
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- Christopher
- 08-27-17
Another Gorgeous Rakoff Collection
David Rakoff is one of the all-time great first-person non-fiction writers at laying one perfect word beside the last.
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- Christopher
- 09-21-12
Embrace the Negative side of things!!!
Any additional comments?
I can see how this might not be a book for everyone. Make sure to listen to the sample before buying. David Rakoff had a most unique voice and I loved it but it can be grating to some people. Also optimistic or sunny happy people might not love the dark negative betty loveliness that David just embraces fully and completely. He was an artist and the world is a little less bright because he is gone.
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- nyog
- 04-16-13
Read it, don't listen to it
David Rakoff as a narrator can only be taken in small doses; he is lugubrious, monotonous, boring. His writing, on the other hand, is lovely, challenging, and well worth the time.
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