Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris

Unfortunately my only photo. Taken in ATL.

Today's post brings David Sedaris' Christmas selection, Holidays on Ice. I've only read one other Sedaris book before, and for some reason already owned this copy, so I was ready to dive in. I think he's hilarious and a wonderful writer and is basically everything I aspire to be in personal essay form. (Note: this collection is mostly fictional and had only 2 personal essays, if I remember correctly.) Unfortunately, I took this on vacation with me and also left it on vacation. It made it through my first day of travel, JAX to ATL to DCA to Maryland. It made it through the next day of travel, driving to D.C. But I lost it my last day of travel: it went with me from DCA to ATL, but sadly, it remains in the seat pouch of my window seat. I carried it on with me because I wanted to finish it on the plane (it was in my backpack; wouldn't fit in my purse), and I can remember thinking "I need to not forget this on the plane." Then what did I do? Leave it on the plane. I didn't realize until I was in the car on the way home so I'm not sure how to go about finding it now. Maybe someone else will discover it and it enlightens them to Sedaris. But here is my review about the book that got away, anyway. (I finished it before the plane even took off.)

In this version there are six entries, but I believe in some newer versions there's more stories - I guess I'll find out about that if I can't re-find this exact copy. Some are fictional and some are from Sedaris' own personal experience. The first one, which I don't know the name of because I lost my copy, is about Sedaris working as one of Santa's elves in a department store, which is completely hilarious and the longest essay in the book, so hopefully you'll like it as much as I did. My other favorite story was set up in the style of a letter families send out to all of their acquaintances around the holidays. The narrator's husband found out he had an illegitimate child and the narrator is complaining about taking her in. It's hilarious and kind of gory. There's another one that's even gorier though and you'll know what I'm talking about if you read it.

This might have been weird for me to read during a time of year that's not the holiday season, but I think reading it in April helped me appreciate it more, possibly. If I repurchase this I would definitely re-read it around the holidays, especially if I got a version with more included stories. Bottom line, David Sedaris is hilarious always, and I will never not be in the mood to read something by him. If you haven't dabbled with nonfiction, I would recommend dabbling with it. And Holidays on Ice will help you even more because there's still some fiction. Highly recommend!

NOTES IN THE MARGINZ FACTS

Book number: 7

Books left: 332

Amount of time taken to read: 6 days (should have been less, it's tiny)

Books by David Sedaris for NiTM: 2

x