Calypso

Critics Review

• Unquestionably the king of comic writing . . . Calypso is both funnier and more heartbreaking than pretty much anything out there

  Guardian

• We get more of a glimpse than we have before of what lies behind the carapace of a writer who seems able to turn almost any situation to comic gold . . . [an] incredibly funny and sometimes moving meditation on love, death and family life, by a master of his craft

  Sunday Times

• Entrancing . . . This book allows us to observed not just the nimble-mouthed elf of his previous work, but a man in his seventh decade expunging his darker secrets and contemplating mortality . . . The brilliance of David Sedaris’s writing is that his very essence, his aura, seeps through the pages of his books like an intoxicating cloud, mesmerising us so that his logic becomes ours

  New York Times

• Calypso is another triumph from the dinner-table raconteur we all wish we could be, a writer whose lightness of touch makes you confront the hardest of truths – and laugh out loud

  Esquire

• Hilarious and moving . . . Sedaris may well be the master of the deadpan delivery – there’s plenty of laughing out loud while you read. But Calypso is also a tender portrait of a family, flawed – like any other – but doing their best to love each other

  Independent

• This is a darker, deeper David Sedaris writing about his sister’s suicide, the inevitability of ageing and how it’s impossible to take a vacation away from yourself, but, rest assured, he’s still one of the funniest, most perceptive
  writers alive

  Red

• Although Sedaris is famous for being funny, he does pain heartbreakingly well. His observations are wry and witty and eye-wateringly honest and you’ll be so sad when it’s over

  Evening Standard

• First-rate comedy gold . . . For Sedaris, the boundary between light and dark is blurred. Life’s pain and humiliation coexist in every living moment with its jollity and deliciousness. Which elevates his musings on the bodily and social travails of being a man in late middle age to a level of seriously sublime silliness. As ever, Sedaris’s irreverent writing is a serious joy; this collection is a must for anyone with a strong stomach who needs a laugh

  The Times

• Heartbreak and hilarity collide . . . [Calypso] captures the surrealism of the mundane and the funny old thing we like to call life

  Attitude

• The American humourist’s latest collection of pieces, about life’s strange twists and turns, will have you shrieking with laughter and also, possibly, just shrieking

  Mail on Sunday

• From malformed turtles to his FitBit obsession, this is comic art in motion. Be warned though: we picked up one Sedaris book and two weeks later we’d finished his entire output

  Emerald Street

• Firmly grounded in the present, but with the same sense of twisted nostalgia that has always marked his best work

  Mail Online

• David Sedaris – a sort of wicked Alan Bennett – is one of the funniest writers at work today

  The Times

• Really, really fabulous

  RuPaul

• David Sedaris had the whole Vogue office cry-laughing with his latest collection, Calypso, in which the notorious funny man chronicles his family’s (mis)adventures at his new beach house, Sea Section. His reflections, on everything from the joys of shopping in Dover Street Market to the tyranny of his Fitbit, are the perfect tonic to the news cycle

  Vogue

• There are few writers as gloriously strange, acerbic, funny and faintly ruthless as Sedaris

  Independent

• The king of the humorous essay… Sedaris fans will find plenty of familiar delights: His misanthropic charms and wry wit are as delightful as ever, even if some of the subject matter has changed

  New York Magazine

• His observations feel sharper and often darker than in previous collections, as he ponders the inevitable breakdown of the human body, the shame attendant with illness and age, the nature of addiction, and the eccentricities of his family. Though middle age may have made his shades of grey blacker, the wit and incisiveness that make Sedaris much-adored remain

  Harper's Bazaar

• Honest, reflective, and even tender… Eloquent and silly, Sedaris’ collection could probably find unshakable life even in the dust kitties under the bed… He gets you laughing even as he gently turns you toward the darkness we all must face

  San Francisco Chronicle

• David Sedaris’ new essay collection is the sharpest retort to anyone who thinks they know what our favorite curmudgeonly humorist will be up to next. His charming observational humor is still the engine, but there’s nothing frivolous about it… Sedaris grapples poignantly and satisfyingly (and yes, often hilariously) with death, the aging body, and just how far the bonds of family can stretch

  Conde Nast Traveller

• Sedaris demonstrates yet again what makes him the best American humorist writing today: a remarkable ability to combine the personal with the political, the mundane with the profane, slime with sublime, and hilarity with heart

  NPR

• David Sedaris’s essays marry meditations on family, suicide, grief and mortality with the hazards of bodily functions and frequent travel for his massively popular public readings. Sedaris is as much standup comic as writer, making this a great audio and one for the car journey

  Guardian