More like 3.5 stars.

Around November, a weird month to get through while teaching, I reached out for some comfort with this audiobook.

I used to rarely listen to audiobooks; even then, it was only comedian memoirs read by the comedians themselves. Think Bossypants and the like. Otherwise, I spent my listening time dedicated to music or podcasts.

Like everyone else in this world, I loved (and still do) to tune into This American Life. A slow, small smile and wave of contentment would wash over me whenever humorist David Rakoff had airtime. In 2012, he died from cancer, and I was floored to realize it’s almost been a decade.

I only digested his work that had been on TAL, and so, after missing him and needing some comfort and offering a laugh, I turned to this book. I used to love the sound of his voice and was delighted that he was the reader for it. His sardonic and wry words juxtaposed with his placid delivery gave me great moments of reprieve during my time with it.

Is this book truly amazing? No, but damn it was a pleasure and made me laugh. It’s a bit dated—he uses terms that probably wouldn’t get used now, but as a Jewish gay man who lived through 80s New York and died before a big shift in terminology came, it’s easy to forgive. But it felt so, so good to be able to listen to him again and feel like the window to a conversation with David Rakoff was still a possibility, and isn’t that part of the magic of reading? To feel like you can still converse with those no longer with us?

Even better, a dog barks TWICE in this book. A little yappy purse dog in the changing room of a runway show is the one I remember most.

i listened to the author read this on my ipod. i love his droll, can't be bothered, tone. also, i enjoy his take on the world. pulling no punches at the frivolity of our lives. very quick, fun read.

Highly entertaining, but I have to say, he uses lots of words I didn't know, and I consider myself to be a pretty educated person. The writing is a little awkward and lacks flow at times, but overall, it's a quick and funny read that covers lots of strange situations, from a flight on the hooters airline, to suspended reanimation conferences.

Some essays are funnier than others, but I love anybody that calls Barbara Bush (senior) a "stupid cunt" and Barbara Bush (junior) a "girls-gone-wild human ashtray".

Such a loss, his early death. Very much enjoying his snark and insight.

A witty, snappy, refreshing humor. David Rakoff touches on the satire of so many of our daily tangles and petulances, that at times as you're laughing along with the story, you may find it comically relatable to your reality. A wonderfully enjoyable read.

I came upon this book whilst on a search for more David Sedaris books, having come to the conclusion that I needed to branch out a bit. I found repeated recommendations of the 'If you like Sedaris, you'll love Rakoff' and figured he was worth a look. Can you really have too many disrespectful, middle-aged gay humourists? I didn't know until yesterday (thank you Wikipedia) that David R is sadly already dead and so finding him will not expand my reading choices in quite the way that I expected. Please forgive if some of my review inevitably turns into a 'compare and contrast the Davids'. I think it's relevant because they are so frequently mentioned in the same breath.

My copy was a second-hand hardback from Amazon marketplace without a dust jacket so I wasn't aware that the book had a longer explanatory sub-title. I didn't really feel that the theme of 21st century excess and narcissism came through as a particularly strong theme - though perhaps it's one of those things that you only notice if you're looking for it. I dipped in and out of the book over quite a long period so perhaps the theme was diluted by lack of immersion (though I read a lot in the bath - so perhaps I should have been totally immersed).

I'd love to know the background to how Rakoff came to find himself in the situations he describes - from helping out at a soft-porn shoot on a paradise tropical island, working as a pool attendant in a fancy hotel, flying on the final Concorde flight, to attending a convention on cryogenics. Were these some kind of magazine assignments? Surely somebody must have been pulling some strings for him.

The style is less 'personal' and more outward looking than that of Sedaris. He doesn't mine the experience of his family and friends or talk about his relationships. Instead the targets of his humour are more distant. I can comfortably predict he probably upsets a lot more people than the other David - especially Republicans (honestly, what he says about the Bush family women made me not so much laugh out loud as take a sharp intake of shocked breath) and posh people, rednecks, the man or woman on the street and especially people who have just become Americans.

There were a couple of chapters I skipped or skim-read because they were just TOO US-focused. I have no great joy in reading a load of witticisms about people I've never heard of in the world of American politics and entertainment.

I understand that Rakoff also used to 'perform' his stories on the radio and I would love to hear them. I know I find Sedaris funnier in my ears than via my eyes and always 'hear' him in my mind when I'm reading. I'd like to know more about Rakoff's voice.

I will put his other books on my wish list and try to track down some performances. I am intrigued.

:( Oh Rakoff. I had such high hopes for your work. I know there weren't a lot of books, but I'll be stopping here. Rats. I really liked your writing and your witty observations. I got a hint, in your first book, of your slightly too harsh judgements of others, while only slightly judging your own foibles. But this second volume was a full-out hate fest. I happen to agree with some of your political opinions, I disagree with more of your political opinions, but your one-sided unwillingness to understand anyone on the other side is so off-putting. You harangue against the other side's hateful speech, and then employ it in greater degree yourself. Your polarizing view of politics - with no compromise - is exactly what politics should not be. So... despite the things I like about your work, your worldview's persistent pessimism and vitriol is not what I want or should be reading.

I wanted to read this book based on the title. I think we have a tendency toward excess and from this title I thought it might be a book about focusing more on things that matter most and being content with what we already have, etc.

Wrong. I fully read the first few chapters, but had to resort to skipping to random pages further on looking for something that wouldn't just annoy me. Never found it. Right from the start, I should have known I would never finish. Rakoff begins with the story of his becoming a US citizen. He does so with such reluctance and seems to have such buyer's remorse that I have to wonder why he did it to begin with. Of course, I know why he did it. To vote. After living in the US for 20 years or so, the need to vote against George W. Bush was the impetus behind becoming a US citizen. This bugs me.

This book is more about politics than anything else, and I am so, so very sick of politics. The author is as left leaning as you can get and hits all the items on that checklist. This mindset is so off-putting to me, and it is equally off-putting when worn by the right leaning. These divisive political agendas have served no one and gotten us no where in the years that we have suffered through them. It's as though we are no longer expected, by others or by ourselves, to use our minds and hearts to make electoral decisions on an individual basis, considering individual issues and individual candidates anymore. I almost wish these elections were blind in a way. No political parties mentioned at all.

But I digress. This book was irritating, whiny, and self-indulgent. Rakoff does write quite well and, with the exception of his fondness for the word f*&@ in all it's variations, could possibly write a book I might like. Provided it was void of the same tired political crap I am so sick of.

Solid but not a keeper. 2005 feels more than 17 years ago now…

“If there ever came a time when the government of my new homeland was actually calling up the forty-something asking-and-telling homosexuals with hypo-active thyroids to take up arms, something very calamineous indeed will have to have happened. The streets would likely be running with blood, and such moral gray areas as might have existed at other times will seem either so beside the point that I will join the fight, or so terrifying and appallingly beyond the pale that I either already be dead or underground.” P.6

“As a homosexual delivered by cesarean section, I have spent my life at a double remove. But images like the ones playing out in front of me you’re so ubiquitous, so much a part of every deodorant out and bra commercial, that there are no real surprises here.” P.38-39

“Surrounded by all these multicolored bits and pieces, these kids could be the last stragglers had a fantastic party. Maybe there is some solace to be derived in that: bacchanal or funeral, after enough time, the detritus looks the same.” P.89

“Giving someone an art project might appear very generous on the surface, but in another sense it’s an act of bullying. More than a store-bought gift, it’s an attempt to curate someone else’s taste. You’re also consigning them to the task of having to take care of your work. It’s a bit like leaving a baby on their doorstep. After the initial amazement at its profound beauty, it simply becomes a liability. I have made and given away easily 20 years worth of things.” P.125

“I had thought that the more controlling position was donor, not recipient. And it is, until the moment you give the thing away, and then, as with most everything in this world, it is out of your hands.” P.129

“It could be hard to remember what one’s anticipatory image of some thing was once you’re on the other side. I am no longer sure exactly what it was I was waiting for but I do know that it was something totally unfamiliar and thrilling. Like a new color. Not a mixture, no trace of blue or yellow or red. What would that look like? I have some basic understanding about light – how it can only be broken down and refracted into it seven constituent hues – and even though I know that the physical world makes the existence of such a thing basically impossible, I’d still really like to see that.” P.203

“One would then be re-animated into a community of like minded cryonauts. But even without them, Benford argues, the future will be no worse than a new infancy. @When were born we don’t know anybody. Others know us, though. It’s like being a star.” P.209

“Those changes and our bodies – the masteries that are acquired, the capacities that dissipate, the people we love lose along the way-- all form the bases of wisdom. They provide a sense of consequence in context. I feel fairly comfortable characterizing as sad, for example, that a man as old as Hugh Hefner still seems aspired and nothing higher than dating 24-year-old twins. 7 1/2 decades is an awfully long time and which not to grow up. When is it enough, why are we to from the table – laden with a plenty never seen before in human history--still feeling so hungry?” P.221

Does anyone write like David Rakoff? I challenge you.

It's a book best listened to on audio. His rhythm of speech, the emphasis he gives some words really makes his elegant language choices and wit shine like something always freshly polished.
I listen to this when I've lost my faith 1. in nonfiction writing or 2. in my way of viewing the world...both of which take place more often than I'd like.

"A grass-soup situation is a self-dramatizing one based on such a poorly imagined and improbable premise as to render it beneath consideration. Michael Jackson saying with no apparent irony, for example, that were he to wake up one day to find all the children in the world gone, he would throw himself out the window. Mr. Jackson's statement doesn't really take into consideration that a planet devoid of tots would likely be just one link in a chain of geopolitical events so cataclysmic, that to assume the presence of an intact building with an intact window out of which to throw himself is plain idiotic."

Although this book mentions neither the indignities of coach class, the torment of low thread count, or the quest for artisanal olive oil, the essays within are a pretty good read. I just find the book's description of itself pretty disingenuous.

I miss this author so much! For those of you not familiar with David Rakoff, he was a glorious gay Jewish Canadian author that passed away much too young from cancer at the age of 47 back in 2012. He wrote humorous snarky short stories much like David Sedaris and his last book, "Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish," is a book of poems that he wrote and audio recorded in his heartbreakingly sad cancer ridden voice that was not ready to be released until shortly after his death. But, back to this book! This is a short book in which he tells some of his signature, sardonic stories about all sorts of things where he interviews and discusses topics from cryopreservation of bodies, fashion week, and to why there are gay republican groups. He was so talented!