From Amazon
David Rakoff's
Don't Get Too Comfortable isn't quite the profoundly illuminating journey into the heart of American cultural and spiritual emptiness advertised on its dust cover. But the book's collected essays, which are brisk, bright, and rendered with a journalist's eye for detail, are funny and subversive. And Rakoff, Canadian-born and a naturalized American,
is occasionally profound, never more so than when he ponders the motives of those who elect to go under a plastic surgeon's knife: "It must be murder to be an aging beauty, to see your future as an ignored spectator rushing up to meet you like the hard pavement. What a small sip of gall to be able to time with each passing year the ever-shorter interval in which someone's eyes focus upon you. And then shift away." That's gooseflesh-good writing, even though cosmetic enhancement--or life as a hotel worker or flying on the Concorde or being gay in a hetero world, all experiences in Rakoff's canon here--isn't distinctly American. (We'll grant him flying Hooters Air, though.) In short, goodies aplenty beckon as Rakoff, wit at the ready and cynicism turned up to 11, invites us to sneer at pomposity, hubris, and plain old human stupidity. Where's the queue?
--Kim Hughes
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year“If you’ve ever thought that the world makes no sense, there is one author who will help you laugh along….
Whether Rakoff is detailing one of the last flights on the Concorde, touring the craft department of Martha Stewart’s Living magazine, or visiting a private island near Belize to witness a Playboy video shoot, Rakoff’s humorous cultural critique balances his distain with a sharp wit that has one chuckling along for the ride.” —
The Calgary Herald“He’s funny, he’s smart, and not merely does he not suffer fools gladly, he doesn’t suffer them at all. The pleasure of reading what results when an exceedly sharp pen encounters an exceedingly inviting target are not to be denied, and Rakoff offers many such delights in these pages. …bloated wallets and bloated egos are his subjects here, and he deflates them with precision and self-evident satisfaction.” —
Miami Herald“David Rakoff is at his cynical best in
Don’t Get Too Comfortable… [He] takes no prisoners in this book… There’s something to amuse and offend everyone.… Rakoff is a master wordsmith whose rapier wit and shrewd story manipulation are matched only by his ability to find poignant humanity in the most unexpected places… [A] thoroughly entertaining book.” –
The Edmonton JournalPraise for Fraud:“
Fraud marks the debut of a significant new voice . . . Rakoff is something special.”
—
The Globe and MailPraise for David Rakoff:“With
Fraud, David Rakoff manages to successfully pass himself off as the wittiest and most perceptive man in the world.”
—David Sedaris
“Rakoff likes to paint himself as urbane to a fault, an outsider anywhere unpaved. But then, in the woods or on a mountaintop, he reveals himself, despite his searing and hilarious observations, to be a completely unrelenting romantic.”
—Dave Eggers
“Possessing a wicked wit and a sharp, elegant writing style, [David Rakoff] has become known as one of our most potent humourists.”
—
The Oakland TribuneFrom the Hardcover edition.