Rating: 
Summary: Insightful--albeit stylistically repetitive.
Review: Rakoff's humorous observations are fresh and never arrogant. If readers look closely enough, they will glimpse a sincerely human loneliness between the laughs. The only problem can be his style. He feels compelled to "wink" at the reader with endless allusions and heavily hyphenated adjectives. This is mostly unnecessary and far too common in pop journalism; one need only consider the relentless puns of entertainment magazines. Fortunately, he manages to write some redemptive sentences that are memorable because of their directness. In the end, when he is not tripping over his own cleverness, Rakoff delivers some considerable gems.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended
Review: The essays in David Rakoff's collection, "Fraud", are priceless! I did not find them arrogant, self-indulgent or mediocre like several other readers who reviewed the book. Rather, I felt like I had discovered a writer who doesn't condescend to some uncomplimentary idea of a general public. Rakoff speaks as if to a close friend, sharing thoughts and stories and observations from his corner of the world in tones ranging from bitingly critical to unabashedly sentimental. Perhaps some objections stem from a lack of obligation on his part to explain or excuse himself, but it's a quality that I found refreshing, honest and immensely entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: The book is good the CD is great
Review: Reading the essays of David Rakoff is a pleasurable and insightful experience, but after hearing him speak at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, I had to get the CD of Fraud. His reading the work gives added meaning to the essays through his judicious use of accent and verbal emphasis. Very highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: David Sedaris Where are you?
Review: I hate to dissagree with those who've gone before me in writing these reviews but I was dissappointed in Fraud. Rather than being bitting, sharp and witty, I found it to be self indulgent to a point that I found myself wishing that the authors teacher in 3rd grade had sat him down and explained that 1. the world doesn't revolve around him and 2. false supreriority used as a defense mechanism might work in your own psyche but please down write it down and trick others into buying it by comparing it to David Sedaris.I haven't seen any book in which an author overestimates our interest in his angst since Brett Easton Ellis' Less than Zero. While I read Bretts books when they came out....the 80's are over, black turtlenecks are gone, Molly Ringwald is wallowing in obscurity, and the lead singer of the Cure has even cheered up a bit. Time for something new.
Rating:
Summary: Keen-eyed essays with wit
Review: David Rakoff is familiar to the oddball crowd that listens to NPR's "This American Life." He has been interviewed, too, by Terry Gross, also on NPR. And that is where I first heard that Rakoff had a new book out. And what a joy it is! Rakoff has the uncanny talent of being able to tell about the most extraordinary events in a mundane (and that is a good thing here) and brilliant manner. I was wondering how so many off-the-wall things could happen to one person. Whether he is discussing a Buddhist retreat with a tardy Steven Segal or searching for decade-old sperm cells from a period where he was undergoing chemotherapy, Rakoff doesn't pull the usual punches. There is no tear-jerking here. Nor is there a disregard for meaning, though. It is the perfect balance of curious nostalgia and pure smarts.
Rating:
Summary: Abundant potential, lack of national awareness.
Review: Your average New Yorker may find this to be one of the funniest books ever written, seriously. Unfortunately no-one bothered to translate this book for the rest of the country. In this book, it is typical that David spends two paragraphs building up a scene, or a moment within the scene, to end it with a reference to some New Yorker, past or present, as some sort of punchline. Rakoff never bothers to explain, even for an instant, who in the hell these people are. For example, when someone is asked to move a tent pole a few inches because it was in the way of a lane that had been planned, Rakoff starts in like a professional comedian-- finding the humor in the monotonous. He starts in dryly expanding the idea of planning a path where people will walk into someone's vision of a vast tent city and ends it by comparing the person who planned the lane with Robert Moses. Quite funny if you know that Robert Moses was NY City's most powerful City Planner, and some of his history. Moses is probably the most mainstream of Rakoff's name-dropping punchlines. Others, I assume, revolve around NY's art, lit., and political scenes. Most of this could have been solved by simply adding titles to the names, like saying "former NY City City Planner Robert Moses" rather than just "Robert Moses." If you're a New Yorker, or well versed in New York culture, this book was literally written for you. For the rest of us, the book contains a lot of non-namedropping moments of sheer brilliance, but you have to be willing to drudge through all those worthless names to see it.
Rating: 
Summary: Reflections of a milquetoast
Review: FRAUD David Rakoff The problem with "Fraud" is that it just isn't as funny as it ought to be. For example, the author does a stint as Freud in a department store display at Christmastime (exactly who came up with this, and how, is unfortunately left unexplained). It's a great concept, but it doesn't quite come off on the page. Rakoff's reportage of other bits of weirdness - a wilderness retreat; a spiritualist retreat (featuring Steven Seagal); the Loch Ness tourist business; a tea-pot controversy in Iceland over the Hidden People, said to inhabit the interiors of solid boulders - all have a certain potential, but in the event come across like flat soda pop. There are a good finds - that the expression "23 skidoo" originated as cop code for the skirt-raisings in the wind tunnel created by the Flatiron Building in New York, on 23rd street; that the volume of seafood sold at the Tsukiji market in Tokyo is five percent of the world total; that the best agent for tanning an animal's hide comes from its own brain; that one Chase Manhattan bank representative for opening accounts actually carries the name Miss Licorice. Otherwise, most of the curiosities, the observations, the one-liners and the puns are undistinguished. Rakoff is humane, sensible and nice. He points out his subjects' foibles, but is never mean enough to belittle anyone just for a laugh. He goes to see Robin Williams, prepared to do a hatchet job, but then decides that, to be fair, the guy has his strong points as well as his weaknesses. His sharpest quips are directed at himself. But while this may make for a better person, it doesn't necessarily make for a better book. (Although, of course, you're only as good a writer as you are, and being nastier won't make you better, either). What is missing is the authentic personal voice, which the reason for writing anything in the first place. Even on quite personal matters, such as his illness with Hodgkins' lymphoma, adolescent embarassments, loneliness, Rakoff has little to say which isn't standard and pre-approved. While bashing Robert Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful," Rakoff quips that he could do "A Fish Called Rwanda" for his next genocide comedy. This sounds like something newspaper columnist Mark Steyn would say. But by way of contrast, Steyn, right-wing axe-grinder though he is, is a personality with vivid opinions and strong convictions, which give his writing an edge that Rakoff's lacks. "Fraud," more conventional than it's title suggests, comes across as a somewhat superior but still standard product of the Canadian Ministry of Culture (or Mediocrity Canada, as it is known up here). It is adequate, it touches all the bases, it's got comedy, quips, self-deprecation and poignant reflection. And it's one more addition to the Himalaya-sized pile of Canadian writing of undistinguished competence. "Fraud" is not bad. And that's not good.
Rating:
Summary: A delight.
Review: Not every day that you come across a book whose every page has you laughing and marveling at the dexterity of the language. The essays go where less sharply-attuned writers fear to tread--the great outdoors and the great within--what a pleasure to be along for the ride.
Rating:
Summary: A very nice start
Review: I think many readers may begin to read this, expecting something along the lines of a David Sedaris book. They're likely to be disappointed at first, but, I'd suggest they hang in there and read on. He does have his own style which grows on you. There is a sense that he's holding back a bit - that perhaps he's edited out more personal thoughts in favor of another wisecrack. This is a little off-putting at first, but is eventually even a little charming, once you've read a few passages that make it clear he's well-aware of his own timidity. I'm not of the character-flaws-are-a-ok-as-long-as-you're-aware-of-them school, but you get the idea that Rakoff's writing is only going to improve from here, hopefully gaining more emotional depth without sacrificing the wit that seems to be so often used as a kind of shield here. And even if it doesn't, I'll be picking up his second collection.
Rating:
Summary: I laughed, I cried
Review: David Rakoff sees the sham in nearly everything. The success of his book, however, is no fraud. The writing (deft, limber, ambitious)! The settings (Scotland to Iceland; ice cream parlors and cancer wards)! The charming self-pity that makes the reader love him! I'm sure there will be comparisons to David Sedaris, but the two writers have different goals. Rakoff shows us that, despite all the lies, a true (if achingly lonely) heart keeps on thudding.
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