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A Carnival of Snackery

Diaries: Volume Two

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A Carnival of Snackery

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris, Tracey Ullman
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About this listen

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 Comedy Funny Witty

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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)
All stars
Most relevant  
Actually fast forwarded through her sections. Sedaris’ stories and voice have become too intertwined for me to accept any substitute. My problem, I’m sure.

Tracey Ullman experiment doesn’t work

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I adore David Sedaris and never tire of listening to him. It’s a pity that he has chosen to have parts of his diaries read by Tracy Ullman. She’s a great actor and does a good enough job but no English person would say ‘twenty eight hundred’ and it is his voice that gives life to the diaries so the sections not read by him feel dull and wrong. Apart from that, thank you David.

Wonderful David!

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Tracey Ullman - no. I appreciate DS may want to try something other than his own voice - but there’s no one who can stand in.

Maybe Amy?

Tracey

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I love Sedaris and I loved the audiobooks featuring his sister doing the female voices. This time, he has disappointingly used a British female actor for his own voice. Sedaris' voice is a huge part of the appeal of his audiobooks and this substitute is highly disappointing.

Disappointed

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Prefer David's voice -
(No disrespect to wonderful Tracy Ullman) but David's excellent as narrator.

Slightly off

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So right, yet so wrong… as ever!
… but ultimately, laugh out loud.
… wanted to keep on listening

Fabulous!

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David Sedaris’ diaries are so engaging because of his voice and idiosyncratic engagement with the text. I found myself dreading when Tracey Ullman would be narrating. Nothing against her, but you can’t read diaries really if you don’t have the person (if alive) reading them

It’s not David Sedaris when a British woman reads it

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I have all the David Sedaris books on Audible and have listened to most of them more than once. I'm a huge fan.
The main reason that I prefer the audio books, is that I think that his narration adds so much to the appreciation of his stories. That is why his book tours are so popular.
I really disliked Tracy Ullman's interpretation of his words and felt that they were jarring. This was especially irritating when she read passages the the author himself had spoken in previous books.
It spoilt my enjoyment of what was otherwise an engrossing book.

Disappointing narration

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Sedaris is in fine form and the passages he reads, around half, apparently randomly, are at times laugh out loud funny, as you'd expect. Sadly though, Tracy Ullman is less than ideal as the narrator of the other half. She tries to perform as if she were David, but it just doesn't work. I love TU but she's not right for this; it doesn't help that Sedaris' own voice is a gorgeous musical lilt.

Very funny, but note one of the two narrators

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Great book although some of it was from books I have already purchased, I didn't realise that. Didn't enjoy the sections read by Tracey though, I prefer it when David does it himself.

Another gem

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