Even in his diaries, where he can be anything he wants, David Sedaris is never more, or less, his own self. Empathetic, selfish, courageous, craven, enjoying his wealth, sharing filthy jokes people give him at signings, arguing with and loving his longtime partner Hugh, siblings, and a panoply of personalities from all over the world. Also, he picks up trash as a hobby. These snack-sized (pun intended) excerpts from 17 years of diaries are fun, snappy, insightful, and a kind of time travel. Also, deeply funny. It takes a particular dedication to a writer's voice to want to read their diaries, and to my delight, spending time with Sedaris' mundane (and sometimes quite extraordinary) daily life is wonderful, hilarious, and sometimes even gross.
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…
Classic serial killer/mind games-with-detective novel, but with more layers and misdirections and twists than you might expect. As we learn in the book, the Fourth Monkey Killer has an agenda, and a plan – and no one’s going to keep him from executing it (literally). A diary provides a second element of story that provides plenty of squirm-worthy moments and some genuine surprises. It says something that I went out and got the next two books in the series, which continue and conclude the mind (and body) count between the killer and the detective in an engaging, if sometimes indulgently long-winded way. A prequel, apparently, is on the way.
Nicholas technically writes horror, but his stories (this is a book of short stories) are so character-based it can be easy to forget that scary, sometimes gory stuff is coming your way. Well, almost. He's full of fantastic ideas that come well-researched, and he doesn't cave to happy endings. His characters go through the wringer -- twice. But he's also compulsively readable and exciting with his plots. So consider this horror with a dab of literary on the side, a collection of short stories that will take you to dark places and leave you there until you decide that actually, you like it.
This volume commemorates Nicholas Kaufmann's twenty-five years as a writer of weird fiction, which began with the story "La Bête Est Morte" (2000). In this diverse volume of his recent tales we find narratives such as "The Fire and the Stag" and "The Fifth Horseman," which suggest that the universe is under the control of a malevolent deity. "The Rest Is Noise" hints at the weird power of music, while "Lucienne" fuses crime and the supernatural in its tribute to Edgar Allan Poe. "Every Path Taken" draws upon H. P. Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" in broaching the possibility of…
Welcome to Seaview Haven: A delightful village of charming humans, quaint homes – and cozy mysteries! Fortunately, there’s silver-haired author-turned-sleuth Winnie Arrowmaker on hand to solve them all.
But things aren’t exactly as they seem. Seaview Haven is a magical town run by the Seelie Court Network, whose “mysteries” are scripted and streamed for the entertainment of enchanted creatures.
Or, rather, they were… Winnie now has a wicked case of writer’s block, moviemaking has ground to a halt, and the town is crumbling.
Enter Finch, an SCN intern who might be the worst Unseelie ever. With aid from his reluctant brownie assistant, Finch is assigned to figure out what’s gone wrong in Seaview Haven… so he can dismantle it forever. But after landing in town, Finch soon learns that real lives – and real friends – aren’t so easily canceled.
To keep “The End” from being stamped on Seaview Haven, Winnie and Finch are going to have to tell a Truly Great Tale. Because as they realize, real power lies not in the stories we watch, but in the stories we tell ourselves.
