If the very thought of Christmas makes you want to run screaming for a wig or yarmulke, consider including David Sedaris's new and updated Holidays on Ice in your disguise kit. It's light, portable, and easy to hide behind a tallis or foot-long beard. And now with six additional holiday-themed stories, including one never before published, it is the ideal companion with which to pass long hours beside the menorah.
Even if you take it straight-up Christian, if you choose to spend the holidays glazing hams, say, or baking cookies shaped like hobos, you will find this book indispensable. Here is the timeless "SantaLand Diaries," which immortalized the struggle of department store elves the world over. Here is "Dinah, the Christmas Whore," in which the Sedaris family opens its heart to an unexpected, almost Mary Magdalene-like visitor.
These and four other favorites are joined by six new tales detailing the nuances of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"), what Halloween looks like at the medical examiner's office ("The Monster Mash"), the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"), and a brand-new story about a barnyard Secret Santa scheme gone awry ("The Cow and the Turkey").
No matter what your favorite holiday, you won't want to miss celebrating year-round with the writer Entertainment Weekly has called "the preeminent humorist of his generation."
Editorial Reviews
"It's not just that Sedaris's crisp prose is humorous. What makes his work a consistent joy to read is his deliciously skewed vision of the world, and his deadpan delivery." --Boston Globe
"Sedaris's reputation is once again, justified as a writer comparable to Mark Twain or James Thurber. You have to go back a ways to find someone to compare David Sedaris with; his talent is so huge it just doesn't come around that often." --Raleigh News & Observer
"Sedaris's droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world's crevices makes him one of the greatest humorists writing today." --Chicago Tribune
"Sedaris belongs on any list of people writing in English at the moment who are revising our ideas about what's funny." --San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author
David Sedaris is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Public Radio International's "This American Life." He is the author of the books When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, and Barrel Fever.
