Amazon says: "A collection of stories and essays by humorist and NPR commentator David Sedaris based upon his own experiences and the hidden perversity that can be found in Anytown, U.S.A. Here are images and blasphemies that nice people don't dare look at--blatantly exposed and told with the clear, casual voice of intimate knowledge. Sedaris' humor is born of compassion and his tales range from the sharing of cheery Christmas letters featuring infanticide, to experiences of the Gay and Famous (Charlton Heston and Elizabeth Dole, for example), to the lives of siblings named Hope, Faith, Charity and Adolph and to alcoholics and chain smokers you can laugh with."
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I thought the essays were very funny, which I've come to expect from Sedaris. The stories, however, were mostly just odd. Not his best work, I don't think, but a curious read...


RABCKing to a BCer in Virginia. Enjoy!!

got it- YAY!!!!
thank you SO much, firegirl :) i'll pass it on when i'm done!

as always, he's funny, but the stories had way of making me feel like i did when i read Running With Scissors. off kilter, perhaps a smidgen of vertigo? The mike tyson romance in the first one was hilarious! the essays i loved.
starting a ray with this, and here are the participants, in no particular order:


gnissorckoob -FL(US/Can)
teenage-faerie-TN (US)
spaceystacey-NJ (US)<--here
petaloka-NY (US)
doris - CAN (US/CAN)
OneMorePage-CA (US)
lyraness- CA
MollyGrue-WA (US pref.)
Hawkette -UK (anywhere, especially OZ)
fushmush-OZ

off to gnissorkoob today to kick off the bookray!
and lucky you gniss- you get a bookmark! :)

Umm, that is the best bookmark I've ever had. Thanks, weeblet! (Did you make it?) And, sorry, future bookrayers, but I am keeping it. I will include another bookmark or something for the next person, and maybe that can be a tradition of this ray.

Anyway, Barrel Fever has just arrived and I am going to dig right in. I've already read and loved two Sedaris books: Me Talk Pretty and Naked, but weeblet says this one is different. MIke Tyson, huh? Well, it's Sedaris so it must be good. More later.

I finished reading the stories section. Wacky, wacky. I think you’ll like these stories, if you don’t mind absurdity, a little political incorrectness, and vegetable soup (sorry I splashed some because I couldn’t put the book down for lunch). Infanticide, stalking, it’s all there, along with cross-country bus travel and of course "barrel fever."

Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

“It’s confusing when a stupid man plays dumb.”

“There’s a type that rents basement apartments. . . . We should try renting out the attic -- get some cheerful people around here for a change.”

“He choked up for a moment and then tapped his glass against Vicky’s stomach, sloshing punch on her corduroy wedding dress.”

In fact you could probably take any random sentence from these stories and it would be bizarre. Here, I’ll try it. Let's see: “It has come to our attention here at V&S Giftware that you seem to have a problem with my chin.”

Now I’m off to read the essays.

Later, same day: Finished the essays. They were fun. Typical Sedaris, I would say. ("The gay Mark Twain.") I had listened to the Santiland Diaries over the holidays, my first download from Audible.com. Tomorrow I mail this off to teenage-faerie, who has read all the Sedaris books except this one. And the bookray continues.

recieved yesterday from gnissorckoob
via a bookray! thanks so much for the extras too! <3

i really enjoyed this book! just like all of sedaris' other work. i brought this one to the doctor's office (where i read nearly all of it while waiting) and kept giggling and grinning. i wouldnt say this was one of my favorites by him but it was fun nonetheless.

i was surprised that i had already read a couple of the essays in here in his other book,holidays on ice.

RELEASE NOTES:

sending off to spaceystacey on monday!

Received in the post today. Sedaris is one of my favorites. I am so sorry to all of those who are on the list after me. I have had some terrible news earlier this month which will change our lives forever. My husband was diagnosed 3/2/05 with stage IV pancreatic cancer and given less than six months to live. Please be patient with me, I will get this posted just as soon as I can focus.

Well how about this - the book is here, 4-1/2 years later!!

Very much looking foreward to reading this - needless to say, I'd forgotten I'd signed up for this ray. So it's a happy little surprise.

Blessings.
Julie