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Narrated by:
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David Rakoff
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By:
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David Rakoff
About this listen
You've heard him on This American Life! Now read his book!
Wherever he is, David Rakoff is a fish out of water. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, playing an evil modeling agent on a daytime soap opera, or learning primitive survival skills in the wilds of New Jersey, Rakoff doesn't belong. Nor does he try to. Still, he continually finds himself off in the far-flung hinterlands of our culture, notebook or microphone in hand, hoping to conjure that dyed-in-the-wool New York condescension.
And Rakoff tries to be nasty; heaven knows nothing succeeds like the cheap sneer, but he can't quite help noticing that these are actual human beings he's writing about. In his attempts not to pull any punches, the most damaging blows, more often than not, land squarely on his own jaw - hilariously satirizing the writer, not the subject.
And therein lies David Rakoff's genius and his burgeoning appeal. The wry and the heartfelt join in his prose to resurrect that most neglected of literary virtues: wit.
Read the blurbs again on the back. They signal the arrival of a brilliant new American essayist. (Okay, Canadian.)
©2001 David Rakoff (P)2001 Random House, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him all over again. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine.
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From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes a new collection of essays taking his listeners on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences.
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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, pedestrians being whacked over the head or gathering to watch as a man considers leaping to his death. 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.
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Tracey Ullman?
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Theft by Finding
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Overall
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Story
For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know.
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Don't hate me but...
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For more than 25 years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing.
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If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong. When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And it's as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself. With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation - and dark humor - toward middle age and mortality.
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
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David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall
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Overall
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Performance
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If you are driving, pull over. If you are at work, close your door, unless you don't mind your colleagues seeing you doubled over, in tears, on your office floor. With this recording, taped before a delirious sold out audience at Carnegie Hall, you are there as David Sedaris performs new stories from his upcoming book. A parrot who mimics an ice maker, lovers quarreling over a rubber hand, and a Santa Claus who moonlights from his job as bishop of Turkey, the cast of characters is like no other.
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Too little for too much
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Themes and Variations
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Dismissed by a bored author at a book signing, a betrayed young man named David Sedaris made a vow. Someday, when it was his turn at the table, he’d connect with his readers. The experience has been even more revealing than he’d hoped.In this hilarious and perceptive essay, the celebrated humorist reflects on the unusual patterns of forced socialization between author and audience, and the obligations and sometimes surprising returns of not-so-chance encounters with strangers: jokes, secrets, insights, and even charity.
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It’s true!
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By: David Sedaris
Critic reviews
"Rakoff possesses a sociologist's eye for places where today’s consoling myths reside." (New York Times)
"David Rakoff’s Fraud showcases his rapier wit, slashing in all directions with slice-of-life insights and cutting remarks, sometimes nicking himself with self-deprecation in his dexterous duello with the American experience." (Publishers Weekly [starred review])
"Rakoff likes to paint himself as urbane to a fault, an outsider anywhere unpaved. But then, in the woods or on a mountaintop, he reveals himself, despite his searing and hilarious observations, to be a completely unrelenting romantic." (Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)
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Schadenfreude is the story of a teenage Jewish intellectual who falls in love - in love with a boy (who breaks her heart), a language (that's nearly impossible to master), a culture (that's nihilistic but punctual), and a landscape (that's breathtaking when there's not a wall in the way). Rebecca is an everyday, misunderstood '90s teenager with a passion for Pearl Jam and Ethan Hawke circa Reality Bites until two men walk into her high school civics class: Dylan Gellner and Franz Kafka, hitching a ride in Dylan's backpack.
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A humorous, delectable read
- By Amazon Customer on 07-13-17
By: Rebecca Schuman
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The Night Ocean
- By: Paul La Farge
- Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Marina Willett, MD, has a problem. Her husband, Charlie, has become obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft, in particular with one episode in the legendary horror writer's life: In the summer of 1934, the "old gent" lived for two months with a gay teenage fan named Robert Barlow, at Barlow's family home in central Florida. What were the two of them up to? Were they friends - or something more? Just when Charlie thinks he's solved the puzzle, a new scandal erupts, and he disappears.
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Frustratingly Uneven Due to Clumsy Plot Structure
- By Adam on 06-15-17
By: Paul La Farge
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Driving on the Rim
- By: Thomas McGuane
- Narrated by: Traber Burns
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, M.D., whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone to medical school.
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Delightful
- By Roy on 01-05-11
By: Thomas McGuane
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Netherland
- By: Joseph O'Neill
- Narrated by: Jefferson Mays
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Alone and un-tethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.
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Get Your Post-Colonial Gatsby ON!
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By: Joseph O'Neill
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Until I Say Good-Bye
- My Year of Living with Joy
- By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, Bret Witter
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins
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Susan Spencer-Wendel's Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy is a moving and inspirational memoir by a woman who makes the most of her final days after discovering she has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). After Spencer-Wendel, a celebrated journalist at the Palm Beach Post, learns of her diagnosis of ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, she embarks on several adventures, traveling to several countries and sharing special experiences with loved ones.
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Until I Say Good-Bye is a paradox for me.
- By Bonny on 03-19-13
By: Susan Spencer-Wendel, and others
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Dropped Names
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- Narrated by: Frank Langella
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Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresistible. With sharp wit and a perceptive eye, Mr. Langella takes us with him into the private worlds and privileged lives of movie stars, presidents, royalty, literary lions, the social elite, and the greats of the Broadway stage.
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Delightful
- By Kathy on 04-03-12
By: Frank Langella
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A Fine Romance
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- Unabridged
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A Fine Romance begins with Bergen's charming first husband, French director Louis Malle, whose huge appetite for life broadened her horizons and whose occasional darkness never diminished their love for each other. But her real romance begins when she discovers overpowering love for her daughter after years of ambivalence about motherhood.
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up the speed to 1.5 and Candace sounds way better
- By Susan M. Mitchell on 06-03-15
By: Candice Bergen
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Learning to Die in Miami
- Confessions of a Refugee Boy
- By: Carlos Eire
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Carlos Eire's story of a boyhood uprooted by the Cuban Revolution quickly lures us in, as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother Tony touch down in the sun-dappled Miami of 1962 - a place of daunting abundance where his old Cuban self must die to make way for a new, American self waiting to be born. In this enchanting new work, narrated in Eire's inimitable and lyrical voice, young Carlos adjusts to life in his new country.
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Excellent memoir of a forgotten time in history
- By BRB on 03-23-15
By: Carlos Eire
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Trying to Save Piggy Sneed
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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- Unabridged
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Trying to Save Piggy Sneed contains a dozen short works by John Irving, beginning with three memoirs, including an account of Mr. Irving’s dinner with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The longest of the memoirs, The Imaginary Girlfriend,” is the core of this collection.
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Unabridged?
- By K. Stiffler on 02-11-22
By: John Irving
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Sunny's Nights
- Lost and Found at the Bar at the End of the World
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- Narrated by: Robert Malloch
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Imagine that Alice had walked into a bar instead of falling down the rabbit hole. In the tradition of J. R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar and the classic reportage of Joseph Mitchell, here is an indelible portrait of what is quite possibly the greatest bar in the world—and the mercurial, magnificent man behind it. The first time he saw Sunny’s Bar, in 1995, Tim Sultan was lost, thirsty for a drink, and intrigued by the single bar sign among the forlorn warehouses lining the Brooklyn waterfront.
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Visiting an Era
- By Carolyn on 03-01-16
By: Tim Sultan
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Bettyville
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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What listeners say about Fraud
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MaryAnn
- 05-15-15
A brave and gentle man.
Listening to someone courageous enough to tell the truth,and so very kind was a pleasure. Four more words yes
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2 people found this helpful
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- Erin Armand
- 02-23-23
A great listen
I love David Rakoff. So sad he’s gone. Great perspectives and lots of laughs. I miss him❤️
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- jvp
- 03-20-14
No as funny as Sedaris
Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?
I did not finish the book. I have listened to the first hour or so and then got really bored with it. I listened while driving and my mind would just drift away. The stories were not engaging or funny. It's witty at times, but too self-absorbed and self-centred. If you like Woody Allen's comedy, you may like this. It was not for me.
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3 people found this helpful
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- awake
- 09-18-19
wonderful book, it was such a shame to lose him
wonderful book, it was such a shame to lose him. well with your time and money.
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- L. B.
- 03-07-13
This book may be a fraud, I was looking for funny
If you could sum up Fraud in three words, what would they be?
Gay NYC Jewish Humor
What did you like best about this story?
I'm 75, female,straight, from a tiny. 2000 population, Southern town, The first adult book I ever read when in the third grade, (my poor little elementary school didn't have a library) was my mother's book club edition of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I learned that a book can carry you to another world, country, city--into another's mind. I loved it.
So here is a story by a Gay Jewish Man who hates dogs, knows nothing about the outdoors I have loved, doesn't enjoy Christmas or quaint B&Bs in New England, yet, the third time I heard it, we connected. I grew to like the book and him, although I'm sure that had we met in an elevator last December in Rockefeller Center, he would have ignored me as I managed a sideways peek at him. It would have been a longer peek had I known he was an author--but then this book--while a BOOK is still sort of a fraud, as he well knows.
Still he chose to climb a mountain in December for a magazine article. Was horribly out of comfort and place, But he did it, and shared the experience.
What does David Rakoff bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Immediacy.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No
Any additional comments?
This book was out of my comfort zone. I began feeling sorry for this sad man, and ended understanding that people are different, They have different life experiences. Different approaches to life. I found that he and I share many values, dreams, and goals. Hear the book.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Suzan
- 05-19-03
Whinny gay Jew surprisingly funny.
Overprivileged whinny gay Jew Ivy League graduate and son-of-psychologist David Rakoff relates tales of life in the big city. He overcomes being Jewish and gay, and goes on to beat cancer and donate sperm. He goes to a lot of weekend retreats too. His story about Steven Segal leading a seminar at a New Age seminar is pretty funny.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall
- W. M. Amber
- 08-06-08
Honest
What I love about this book is David's Honesty. He weaves funny tales in with painful ones. As an avid listener of TAL i enjoyed him as much throughout this book as i did, listening to his stories on the show. It was a short and great listen.
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2 people found this helpful
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- rocky
- 05-12-15
Such joy.
I really miss Rakoff.
Always fun to listen.
What can I say, he was completely different from me, yet I feel like I know him.
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2 people found this helpful
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- K2
- 07-09-15
Miss him
This book makes me miss him even more. He had a way with words that was simply elegant.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Lisa
- 01-08-10
All the joys of eves-dropping without the guilt
Listening to David Rakoff is just so much fun! His command of the language, hilarious perspective and extensive vocabulary make this an enjoyable audio book.
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1 person found this helpful