|
|
(Larger Image)
|
Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
by David Rakoff
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Doubleday (2005-09-20)
ISBN: 0385510365
EAN: 9780385510363
Dewey Decimal #: 081
Hardcover: 240 pages
Release Date: 2005-09-20
SKU: 00-8YGA-0FGL
Condition: As New
Comments: Like new - appears to be unread. Very minimal shelf wear on dust jacket
|
Editorial Reviews
|
Product Description
David Rakoff’s bestselling collection of autobiographical essays, Fraud, established him as one of today’s funniest and most insightful writers. Now, in Don’t Get Too Comfortable, Rakoff moves from the personal to the public, journeying into the land of unchecked plenty that is contemporary America. Rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly and wittily skewered.
Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism; our manic getting and spending have now become celebrated as moral virtues. Whether contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good-times-and-chicken-wings populism of Hooters Air, working as a cabana boy at a South Beach hotel, or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core video shoot—where he is provided with his very own personal manservant—Rakoff takes us on a bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess. He comes away from his explorations hilariously horrified.
At once a Wildean satire of our ridiculous culture of overconsumption and a plea for a little human decency, Don’t Get Too Comfortable shows that far from being bobos in paradise, we’re in a special circle of gilded-age hell.
|
Customer Reviews
|
Fun, breezy look at life in the 21st century.
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-10-21
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
David Rakoff's collection of short essays is an enjoyable romp through various adventures in modern America and Europe. He skewers everyone he meets, including himself. If you like David Sedaris style humor, you will enjoy this book!
|
|
fabulous!!
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-09-05
david is funny, and smart and sweet, all at the same time. i love his writing.
|
|
What exactly was the point of this?
Rating  (1)
Date: 2008-08-29
Not good. I actually stopped reading and returned it to the bookstore about halfway through. Most of it was just meaningless; I'd reach the end of a chapter and wonder "What was the point of that?" While there were definitely funny parts, they were too few and far between. I expected witty social commentary, but all I got was pointless anecdotes and pretentious language. If I could describe the book in one word, it would be "self-indulgent"; I suspect that Rakoff is the type of person who talks just to hear the sound of his own voice.
|
|
Best of breed
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-03-21
David Rakoff is, by far, the funniest of the genre created by David Sedaris. At least, I certainly think so, when he notes that Hooters girls look like "olympic athletes representing the tackiest nation on earth, which they kind of are" or notes that what he seeks in a vacation destination are "a melancholy populace given to creating monochrome woodcuts of hollow-eyed women sitting disconsolate in shabby rooms with their dinners in tin trays before them." If you don't find this at all funny, maybe these books aren't for you.
|
|
Very Funny
Rating  (3)
Date: 2007-09-07
1 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book's writer has some very humorous insights into how the luxury we all live in is often taken for granted and he finds a great way to portray that in his essays. I also like Lloyd Dangle's latest book "Troubletown" as it presents the misguided adventures of our current leadership in a humorous yet insightful fashion as well. Troubletown Told You So: Comics that Could've Saved Us from this Mess
|
|
|
|
|