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Holidays On Ice Abridged

Holidays On Ice Abridged

List Price: $24.98
Your Price: $15.74
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "Laughing All The Way"
Review: This year there are no shortage of Christmas books on this site or in your local book shop to fill you with all the images of the holiday season: snow crested fields, roaring fireplaces, carolers, holly and ivy- you get the picture. There are newcomers like Grisham's "Skipping Christmas" and Mary and Carol Higgins Clark's "He Sees You While You're Sleeping" and "The Mitford Snowmen". Booksellers pile them right next to classics like Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," "Twas the Night Before Christmas," "The Polar Express," and Dr. Seuess' "The Grinch that Stole Christmas". Just like the annual search for the perfect tree, the search for the perfect holiday book is no less daunting.

So while browsing for my holiday selection, I was directed to a small paperback volume in David Sedaris' "Holidays on Ice". It's been out for a few years, but I missed this one (after reading it, I think I missed it because the Christmas police must have ordered it off the shelves for fear of causing a national laughing epidemic). Forget the antisocial behavior of the Grinch, he's just an out of work elf compared to Sedaris. Nothing, absolutely nothing about Christmas is immune from the sarcasm and cynicism displayed in the collection of short stories that make up this small volume. After reading this book on my train ride to Rockefeller Center to watch the annual lighting of the Christmas tree, I don't think that I'll ever be the same. Imagine that Santa's 'Ho, Ho, Ho' greeting is really his egg nog induced shout to a streetwalker; or that Macy's dresses ex-cons and thugs as its Christmas elves; ever receive a Christmas letter from a cousin inside the annual holiday card only to have him recount his indictment for murder and invite your family to his bail hearing; or what about a contest with the neighbors over who can donate more blood to show the spirit of giving. Like I said, I'll never be the same.

If you like to laugh and can appreciate the acerbic wit of someone whom must have gotten too much coal in his stocking as a child to come up with this collection of irreverences, then this one's for you.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: not your typical holiday stories!
Review: Very enjoyable. I've often heard David Sedaris on NPR, but this is the first time I've read any of his work. The dark humor is right on target, and the stories definitely contain some unexpected twists and turns. I'm already planning to read some of his other books!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fall Down on the Floor Laughing!
Review: David Sedaris is probably one of the funniest writers writing today. Out of all his books this one is the funniest, which is saying a lot. He has the perfect balance to make everyday events hilarious using hyperbole and sarcasm without actually resorting to outright cruelty. I cannot reccomend this book enough.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A different twist to the Christmas season
Review: My husband and I listened to "SantaLand diaries" on our way from St.Paul to Milwaukee in a snowstorm and have yet to hear a funnier Christmas tale. It's an incredibly humorous twist to what many of us have as as a Christmas memory. If you don't find this funny, get a humor transplant.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Laugh out Loud
Review: While I have found the books by David Sedaris funny his deanpan delivery on the tapes ads a whole new dimension. His way of turning a simple subject such as trying to ask a butcher for meat in French or getting some remodling done are turned into hilariously insiteful tales due to his attention to detail and wonderful ability to mine for the ridiculous in almost any situation. His books have kept me awake at night laughing and this CD made me wish my morning commute was longer so I could hear it all at once. He has many imitators but is still the best.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Funny Again
Review: Sedaris' work makes me laugh, and this book was no exception. His wit is dry and sardonic, and really, what better target for irreverent wit than the holiday season. His short stories are all rooted in his life history, his recounting of truly hillarious incidences. I loved this book, and recommend it to anyone who appreciates dry humor. If you want to be amused, read his work.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The most depressing book or tape
Review: Humor are far in between the dark and depressing view. Whenever those precious humorous gems come along I was already too depressed to be amused. Can't finsih listening to the first side of the first tape.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Short Collection Overloaded With Cynicism
Review: If you've read David Sedaris's writing before, you will be familiar with the tone of Holidays on Ice. In fact, if you've read Barrel Fever, you've read two of these stories already, and if you've read Naked, you've read one other. Out of six, three new stories is barely a compelling reason to shell out the bucks for this slender volume. For those not yet familiar with Sedaris's style, he writes cynical and witty short stories. They are often autobiographical (unusually in this tome half the stories are clearly fictional) and at their best full of piercingly true and hilarious observations of human nature. Sedaris spares no one, least of all himself, and so although there is nothing of an explicitly graphic sexual nature here, this isn't the book to give to sweet old aunt Betsy as a stocking-stuffer. Sedaris is matter-of-fact about his homosexuality and his drug use, and similarly about the sexual side of American life. "Dinah, the Christmas Whore", for example, is an uncommon Christmas tale. Conservative readers who find themselves offended by the irreverence of the title should stay away, not only from Holidays on Ice, but all of Sedaris's writing. Unquestionably the first story in this collection is also the best. In "SantaLand Diaries", his on-the-job expose of life as a Macy's elf, Sedaris's customary cynicism is tempered, albeit only slightly, by an occasional touch of sentimentality. The final three stories go to extremes to avoid such influence, and suffer greatly for it. I find myself wearied by such non-stop cynicism. The jaded outlook of these last stories is not alleviated by the fact that they clearly seek to parody that very outlook. In "Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol" a theatre critic roasts three children's Christmas pagents, concluding with the line "Is it just them, or am I missing something?" Fair enough, although not especially funny or profound, but then this is the sole point of most of the book. Sedaris often seems eager to embrace sentimentality, but afraid that in so doing he will not seem sufficiently cosmopolitan. Taken individually these stories are fine, but not representative of the author at his best. As a collection I was rather disappointed. My recommendation--buy Barrel Fever, Naked, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, and skip this one.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Six Seasonal Stories
Review: Sedaris once again knocks out six stories that will knock your socks off. One story deals with a woman's notes to her freinds after her family is forced to take in a young, female Vietnamese adult (a vestige of the husband's war mistakes) who speaks a language learned from Sesame Street watchings ("shiny, big bird, five dollar"). There is nothing but hilarious bedlam for the family, accented, of course, by the Christmas Holidays. Another deals with a true story of Sedaris' sister taking a crack whore home for the Holidays. The family considers this very cool and with his family, you'l easily see why. However, the ultimate laugh is Sedaris' short-lived stint as a Santa Claus elf in New York's Macys. Born of adult men and one midget, all because they are short, Sedaris describes the outrageous tedium and shocking marching orders they have to endure. The Santa crowds with or without children are mercilessly dissected, as well they should be, as Sedaris wonderfully describes this terrible thing that is 'visiting Santa'. This book is far too short, but well worth the endorphic giggles it induces.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great year-round gift...
Review: I enjoyed this immensely and have given it as a gift to a couple of my friends because it makes a great read anytime of year. I think it's better to read it when it's not the holiday season because you appreciate it more when you aren't immersed in your own brand of holiday funk. Thumbs way up.


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