-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
Essays
by David Sedaris
Book Reviewed by:In this new collection, David Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend, in essays that are "among the best of his career" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
In The Land and Its People, Sedaris investigates what it means to be a traveler, a brother, a lifelong friend. Trying on the role of caretaker after his boyfriend Hugh's hip-replacement surgery, he both succeeds and fails. He covers ground with his friend Dawn and challenges her to eat a truck tire. A ambivalent Duolingo bot becomes his unlikely confidante as he attempts to describe his family in a foreign language. Ever adding to his list of "Countries I Have Been To," he rides a horse named Tequila in Guatemala, buys a bespoke priest's cassock in Vatican City, and goes on safari in Kenya without taking a single photo.
Time takes its toll: scrolling through his address book, he counts those he couldn't bear to outlive, and realizes how many are already gone. He is bitten by a dog and insulted by a wee train passenger. A woman on the street late at night either sexually harasses him or doesn't. It's easy to agree with the lady waving a sign that reads, "Enough Is Enough." And yet, life holds much to delight in: the massive testicles of a ram, a trip abroad with his sisters, a really excellent reptile video, a pair of well-made cotton underpants.
Throughout these essays—at once acerbic and tender, playful and profound—Sedaris shows how much there is to marvel at when you keep your head up and your eyes open, observing with warmth and curiosity our fascinating human species and the lands we inhabit.
These richly drawn stories are conversational and witty, though I wish "Friends," about Sedaris' childhood best friend Dan Thompson, had a more prominent placement. It feels like burying the lede to put it near the end of the collection, as if what happened to Sedaris as a boy didn't infect and influence who he became as a man. The essays are a tour of all the things that make Sedaris self-conscious or uncomfortable. Like eating alone in a restaurant ("The Doctor Is In"). Meeting the Pope ("The Hem of His Garment"). Staying at someone's house ("A Long Way Home"). The humor is anticipated and welcomed by the reader, such as when Sedaris writes about the time he quit meth but not because he went to rehab. His dealer moved to Florida and no one took his place. Sedaris transitioned to pot, ecstasy, and mushrooms, then alcohol. He finally quit in 1999 when he'd had enough...continued
Full Review
(1195 words)
(Reviewed by Valerie Morales).
In the early 1990s, when director Roger Allers went to Kenya, he heard the phrase "hakuna matata" from one of the safari guides. Upon his return, he told lyricist Tim Rice about the breeziness of the phrase and Rice anchored it in a quirky song for the movie The Lion King, as a turn in the plot from grief to humor. Audiences of The Lion King celebrated the idea that a carefree lifestyle is an antidote to the anxieties and stress of life. In the years since then, the phrase has been widely commercialized and criticized by those who perceive it as endorsing avoidance and irresponsibility.
The phrase "hakuna matata" originated in the coastal regions of East Africa, including Tanzania and Kenya. In Swahili, which is a Bantu language, "...
If you liked The Land and Its People, try these:
by David Sedaris
Published 2019
David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.
by Sloane Crosley
Published 2019
A brand-new collection of essays filled with hilarity, wit, and charm. The characteristic heart and punch-packing observations are back, but with a newfound coat of maturity. A thin coat. More of a blazer, really.
by Patricia Lockwood
Published 2018
From Patricia Lockwood - a writer acclaimed for her wildly original voice - a vivid, heartbreakingly funny memoir about having a married Catholic priest for a father.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…
