Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls

by

David SEDARIS

288 pages

Published by Little, Brown and Company
on April 23rd 2013

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Three years ago, I wrote a very disappointed review of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, joining many readers and bloggers who definitely thought this was not Sedaris at his best.

When I heard he was preparing to publish Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls, his latest book with a title à la Sedaris of course, I was wondering if I would give him another chance. Well, this book showed up right in front of my face at my library, on its release day, so how could I resist?

And I’m glad I succumbed. This time I join a much happier crowd saying: ah ah this is the real Sedaris again!

And it sure is. I recently highlighted his first chapter, on the French medical system, French doctors and dentists. So hilarious and so true, foi de Française!

In this book, you will travel all over the world, not only to France, but also to Australia, to China and Japan, etc. I really enjoy his style, his views always right on target, with love and humor, and the way he knows how to suddenly give a final twist you were not expecting at all.

You will also meet several members of his family, Hugh of course, and also his parents, his sister and his unforgettable yaya.

NB: In this collection, many essays have actually been previously published, in newspapers or magazines. And several feature a narrator different than Sedaris himself. One essay has some quite funny but dirty sex jokes.

QUOTATION

“Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.”
Just to show that Sedaris can also be poetic at times!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

A guy walks into a bar car and…

From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father’s dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called “hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving” (Washington Post). [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist and radio contributor.

Sedaris came to prominence in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay “SantaLand Diaries.” He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. Each of his four subsequent essay collections, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008) have become New York Times Best Sellers.

As of 2008, his books have collectively sold seven million copies. Much of Sedaris’ humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and it often concerns his family life, his middle class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, Greek heritage, various jobs, education, drug use, homosexuality, and his life in France with his partner, Hugh Hamrick.

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