It’s been a couple of years since I read my last Sedaris, so I was about due. I picked up his latest book, Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls from the library as an audiobook. It was a good decision. (As a point of interest, one of the essays does have owls in it, but nowhere, at least that I could find, does it contain the word ‘diabetes.’ The title is somewhat of a mystery to me.) I’ve also never read a Sedaris by audiobook, and it was delightful. He’s a scamp, Sedaris is, and he doesn’t fail to entertain.
Highlights include: European dental care, Sedaris’s hilarious (and weirdly understandable) obsession with picking up litter along the English countryside where he owns a home, multiple stories with Pater Sedaris walking around in nothing but his underwear, some wonderful anecdotes about his always amusing family, the story of his first colonoscopy, and the titular essay, in which Sedaris struggles to find a stuffed owl to give to his long-suffering partner, Hugh.
This wasn’t my favorite Sedaris, however, for a couple of reasons. There were a couple of essays that made me feel weird. I can’t remember the first one, but there was this story with baby turtles that made me sick to my stomach (it was well-written, I just couldn’t handle what happened). The other reason is that there were several shorter essays at the back of the book that Sedaris wrote specifically to be read aloud by others. He did this when he learned that children have been reading his stories aloud in competitions and wanted to be helpful. I think this is a funny idea, but the problem with it is that I didn’t actually care for any of the stories. I much prefer his non-fiction, I think.
Cannonball Read V 