A Carnival of Snackery

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; collecting Romanian insults, or being taken round a Japanese parasite museum. 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 Serbian motels, 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.

Sedaris has been compared to Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, Lewis Carroll and a 'sexy Alan Bennett'. A Carnival of Snackery illustrates that he is very much his own, singular self.

“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

David Sedaris is the author of twelve previous books, including, most recently, A Carnival of Snackery, The Best of Me, and Calypso. 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 Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.

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; collecting Romanian insults, or being taken round a Japanese parasite museum. 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 Serbian motels, 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.Sedaris has been compared to Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, Lewis Carroll and a 'sexy Alan Bennett'. A Carnival of Snackery illustrates that he is very much his own, singular self.

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