A Carnival of Snackery

Diaries: Volume Two

By: David Sedaris

Narrated by: David Sedaris, Tracey Ullman

Length: 17 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

There's no right way to keep a diary, but if there's an entertaining way, David Sedaris seems to have mastered it.

If it's navel-gazing you're after, you've come to the wrong place; ditto treacly self-examination. Rather, his observations turn outward: a fight between two men on a bus, a fight between two men on the street; collecting Romanian insults, or being taken round a Japanese parasite museum. There's a dirty joke shared at a book signing, then a dirtier one told at a dinner party - lots of jokes here. Plenty of laughs.

These diaries remind you that you once really hated George W. Bush, and that not too long ago, Donald Trump was a harmless laughingstock, at least on French TV. Time marches on, and Sedaris, at his desk or on planes, in fine hotel dining rooms and Serbian motels, records it. The entries here reflect an ever-changing background - new administrations, new restrictions on speech and conduct. What you can say at the start of the book, you can't by the end.

Sedaris has been compared to Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, Lewis Carroll and a 'sexy Alan Bennett'. A Carnival of Snackery illustrates that he is very much his own singular self.

©2021 David Sedaris (P)2021 Hachette Audio UK

Critic reviews

"Could there be a more delightful American import than the memoirist David Sedaris? Not since the peanut butter and jelly sandwich have we inherited something so sweet and comforting yet so wickedly naughty." (The Times)

"So often Sedaris's phrasing is beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism.... His life is extraordinary in so many ways - the drug addiction, the eccentric family, the crazy jobs, the fame, the globetrotting - but one of the more unlikely achievements here is in making it all seem quite ordinary. Ultimately, his masterstroke is in acting as a bystander in his own story." (Book of the Day, Guardian)

Huge David Sedaris fan for years...but

Really disappointed that he didn't narrate the whole thing. Tracey Ullman was just not needed here AT ALL and she wasn't just used to for the Irish/British accents as he says in the beginning! He's got such great delivery reading his own work - I didn't want to hear Tracy's voice! Whose bad idea was that?! Sorry Tracy, you're very talented, but not for this. Otherwise, David, you're the best.

Always loved Books by David Sedaris

This insight into an author's life is a treat and I love the fact that I can relate to these events... sometimes

Using a different narrator ruins the audible book

No disrespect to Tracy Ulman, who is a talented actor and comedian, but I’m a big fan of Sedaris’ own narration, and couldn’t listen to the pieces narrated by Ulman. Sedaris’ observations are as wonderful as ever, The heavy accents used by Ulman to voice characters, though, are overdone and kill the lightness of touch in Sedaris’ writing. His own narration and comic timing only enhance the deftness of his humour. So I was disappointed, and ended up forwarding through every Ulman-narrated piece. Had the sample included some of Ulman’s narration, I’d have known immediately not to buy the audible.