Customer Reviews

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (Unabridged)

Sock Rockingly Good. Mr Sedaris may not view himself as a sportsman but he hits it out of the park with his latest book.

There is something about a Sedaris which has one getting comfy in ones chair and settling down to finish it in one sitting. Cups of tea grow cold as one just enjoys.

There is always an element of the grotesque to Sedaris stories. However, in this latest book the lens which Sedaris turns on humanity is in rather softer focus. This is not to say that Sedaris has lost his edge but rather that he has gained an appreciation of charm.

A must buy.

David Sedaris is a best-selling humorist, essayist and story teller. This collection of 26 pieces include 6 that are fictional and are less successful than the hilarity contained in his observational accounts. The absurdities of life on his travels features planes, trains and cabs. Experiences with dentists, taxidermists, litter, a visit to a zoo, drunkenness, a drug accompanied colonoscopy are amusing examples of his subject matter given the Sedaris treatment with touches of rudeness and exaggeration.

Everyday common events are viewed with his personal self-deprecating approach that inevitably provokes laughter. His autobiographical perspectives on his childhood in North Carolina are not shirked nor are less than affectionate references to his family;father in particular is targetted in almost vengeful terms. These are often appropriate, comical and poignant.

This is a book full of stories that can raise a laugh and chuckle on repeat readings as well as aspects of his humour missed on first encounter. Very funny and recommended.

I first heard David Sedaris on BBC Radio 4 about 2 years back. I have yet to hear, in this millennium, anyone funnier. I love his work. This book is pure genius, as are his earlier publications. More please!!

I must confess, I have never heard of David Sedaris before this. In fact, when I saw this book at the store, I was mostly attracted to the cover and the title - even though it made no sense to me - and once I read the synopsis, it sounded entertaining enough for me to purchase.

Reading the introduction, where David Sedaris talks about "pieces in which I am a woman, a father, and a sixteen-year-old girl with a fake British accent" I thought wow, this sounds highly intriguing. However, once I started the book, I was a little confused to tell you the truth. It seemed more of an autobiography, or a diary of sorts.

The book basically compiles a variety of events that occurred in David's life - not always connected and not always making sense - with several (six to be exact) randomly written essays in between. I was not a fan of those essays as they seemed filled with contempt and hatred and sarcasm and condescension, but the rest of it - his diary entries so to speak - were thoroughly entertaining.

I am not sure if his recounting of events are factual or exaggerated, maybe even made up at times, but I would personally like to think that they are all accurate and have occurred in his lifetime.

Some of my favourite was his description of Hawaii vs his description of China. David Sedaris travels a lot, and you will find yourself transported to all the places he has traveled to through his visually stimulating and accurately depicted descriptions of them. These entries stand out for me, and honestly, they also influence my probability of visiting these places! As I will be spending my honeymoon in Hawaii in two months' time, I was ecstatic to read about his experience in Maui, from the Lei greeting at the airport to the possibility of swimming with sea turtles - absolutely beautiful! As opposed to his experience in China (especially with the cuisine there), and the detailed description of all the filth (for example, finding an un-flushed turd in the toilet).

The one thing I did find somewhat confusing was the title of this book. There was one very interesting story that involves Sedaris wanting to buy a stuffed owl as a Valentine's day gift and how that turned into a bizarre experience, but it had nothing to do with diabetes. So I'm left a little confused at the relevance of the title to the actual book.

That being said, there is no plot or story line to this book, you read every piece as a sort of autobiographical diary entry and enjoy every one of them independently.

I suspect that these books are better read after you have listened to Sedaris first (as I have) as you don't so much read the essays as hear him speaking them to you
His use of personal anecdote to provide pin point insight into modern lifestyle and values is brilliant and as a bonus is incredibly funny!

I love David Sedaris' writing. I find myself re-reading his books and ending up liking bits that I wasn't particularly keen on to start with. I absolutely love 'When you are engulfed in flames', but when I first read it I didn't think it was as good as his other work. Now it is my favourite by far. I think the same will happen with this collection of stories. To my mind there is just no one above him! His outlook is just amazing!

love the author- laugh out loud funny- my only regret is how quickly I read it and ignored my family the entire time- hated to reach the end

Quirky, clever, funny and observant, I completely adored this book. The stories are so diverse but all are witty and you wish you were the author's friend!

"Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls" is David Sedaris's latest collection of short humorous essays. Subjects include taxidermy, his aimless youth, language-learning courses, his new home in England, and diary-keeping. This is an enjoyable read, and there are examples of tenderness and laugh-out-loud moments (for example, I liked Sedaris's dismay that his new passport photo depicts 'a penis with an old person's face drawn on it'); but things seemed a bit more subdued than in other volumes and, as another reviewer has mentioned, sometimes bitter. Interspersed with the observational pieces are a number of short monologues in which Sedaris adopts various repugnant right-wing and/or sociopathic personas. These are intended to be funny (maybe insightful?), but they leave a bit of a nasty taste.

[I was given a free download of this book by the publishers for review.]

I fear I have now either read the majority of these in other books or heard David Sedaris relate the stories on radio 4. They can take a second reading but the laughter is not so loud.