Very enjoyable. I especially enjoyed the essays about learning Buddhism from Steven Seagal, posing as a "Christmas Freud" for the window of Barney's, and interviewing teachers who were imported from Austria to teach in NYC public schools. My favorite line from that last essay I mentioned: "People keep asking us where we are from. We tell them Austria, they say, 'Oh Australia.' And we say, 'Austria,' and they say, 'Oh, but we call it Australia.' I tell them, 'No, it's absolutely different,' and they say, 'Oh, but it's the same area.' At almost that exact moment, a passing security guard asks excitedly if they are the Australian teachers."

Well, in all honesty, I wanted lo like this book but Rakoff's writing is a little dry and it doesn't carry the same with that he was known for in American Life. Maybe because I am not a new yorker or maybe because I find his personality a bit petulant and at times too sophisticated for my taste. Fortunately I purchased this old book for only 79¢ so, I cannot call it a fraud, but then again, I could.

Honestly, I'm basically over books of essays by male writers. I read this because I was gifted a copy, but it's not something I would have picked up on my own. It was fine.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ (3.5)

I admit, I tend to have a set of middling expectations when coming into a book labeled “Humor.” This is a general statement because comedy books have never been particularly funny to me - and ones from around Y2K and before even less so. I know I shouldn’t go into something with lowered expectations because of something so superficial, but from all of the twenty-year-old-plus humor I’ve read, it tends to not be my thing. (It’s not that that sort of humor is bad; it just doesn’t tickle my funny bone really, save in the rare instance a sentence or two gets me laughing out loud. My own sense of humor has been ruined by the internet.)

However, I’m very happy to report that I enjoyed this one quite a bit! I was pleasantly surprised. Rakoff himself is very relatable and charming throughout, and the humor (while not belly-hurtingly funny) was usually subdued and witty enough that I enjoyed it. Probably my favorite essays of the collection were “Christmas Freud,” “I’ll Take the Low Road,” and “Back to the Garden.” Not all of them hit home with me or were particularly memorable, but these ones, in their own unique, quirky ways did resonate with me. Rakoff is an excerpt of taking moments of his absurd and sometimes harrowing life and breathing life, humor, and genuinely poignant insights into them. Overall, it was a good mix of funny and heartfelt, and I liked that.

He reminds me of David Sedaris whom I prefer but I enjoyed some selected essays contained herein.
I loved the moment of surviving cancer & breaking down near people who've seen you at your absolute worst (115lbs for him & near death) & having a dread wash over you when realizing you don't know a single one of their names.

Amusing stories though I have completely forgotten most of them

This paperback and I have a history. Picked up a used copy at the Montclair Book Center in New Jersey in... sometime between 2009 and 2012. Rakoff was still alive, for sure, and my friend Rory — who knew him — recommended his writing to me. I remember happily reading from it at Villa Victoria Pizza (Montclair again, waiting to see a movie). I also remember struggling to read it during the summer of 2016, when illness was invading my body, and focus was a real challenge. Finally, I returned to Fraud.

Rakoff has a unique voice — he's a bit of a snob, bit of an intellectual, yet he's self-deprecating. And of course, very funny. But what I truly enjoyed about this book is that Rakoff was a journalist. Where his pal and fellow humorist Sedaris generally lives life and comments on it — and there is NOTHING wrong with that — Rakoff finds himself in odd and fascinating places and situations (a kibbutz; Steven Seagal-led spiritual retreat; seeking elves in Iceland; etc.). As a result there's a bit more "meat" to his essays.

I'll seek out more used Rakoff. He's not going to miss the royalties, after all. What, too soon??

David Rakoff is funnier than David Sedaris. His collection of essays reveals him to be a wannabe NYC cynic who can't quite seem to shed his aw-shucks, nice guy Canadian roots. He has the ability to see the ridiculous side of every situation without forgetting that he himself is as fallible as the rest of us. This book made me laugh out loud (Sedaris and Vowell will occasionally make me crack a smile). I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys the essay format.

What started as brilliant ended as a bit tedious and snobby. It's as if Rakoff is trying too hard to convince us that he's smart and funny and cynical . . . which is unfortunate. He really is smart and funny and brilliantly cynical.

A collection of humorous essays, both autobiographical and based on journalistic assignments. A homosexual and a Jew, Rakoff plays up his neuroses and fears as he discusses his early career in publishing as the bottom rung of the assistant ladder; the cancer that forced him to leave Japan where he worked as a translator; his work as a bit actor in television. He’s self-effacing and funny, but also startlingly perspicacious; his insight on how teachers think (in his piece on Austrian cultural-exchange teachers in New York City) is full of empathy and understanding. He comes off as a far more erudite David Sedaris, name-dropping writers, classic movies, Freud’s Dora, and characters from literature, all with wit and élan (of a bluff old retired pilot who fixes up houses: “there’s a sad whiff of mortality… like watching ‘This Old House’ hosted by Beaudelaire”).

An actor, writer, spoken-word performer and not-too-bad draftsman (he did the chapter illustrations for this book), Rakoff comes off in this book as a talented man weighted down by fears and neuroses, the classic over-educated person whose very learning causes distress by revealing the complexity and indifference of the vast world – which made it all the sadder when I learned that he died of cancer last year. All of the pieces in this book have humor, pathos, and poignancy; they really do evoke a sense of being alone in the world. I enjoyed “In New England Everyone Calls You Dave,” an account of hiking up a small mountain in New Hampshire and how it brought to mind Rakoff’s ill-fated time on a kibbutz, and “Christmas Freud,” in which Rakoff plays Freud for a Christmas window at Barney’s, the most. They’re easily the funniest stories, and let Rakoff explore the absurd in the quotidian, and self-reflection in the absurd.

A dynamite essay collection. There are few writers out there that match Rakoff's distinct, cutting wit and ingenuity. Some of my favorite pieces: "Extraordinary Alien," the classic "Christmas Freud," and the touching (yet haunting) piece about his struggle with Hodgkin's disease, "I Used To Bank Here, But That Was A Long Time Ago."

This was terrific. Hilarious, honest, vivid. Entertaining to both my inner cynic and that other part of me that’s just a bag of emotions rattling around.