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Audiobook6 hours
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
Written by David Rakoff
Narrated by David Rakoff
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems
David Rakoff's collection of autobiographical essays, Fraud, established him as one of our funniest, most insightful writers. In Don't Get Too Comfortable, Rakoff journeys into the land of plenty that is contemporary North America. Rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly and wittily portrayed.
Whether contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good times and chicken wings of Hooters Air, portraying the rarified universe of Paris fashion shows where an evening dress can cost as much as four years of college, or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core Playboy TV shoot, where he is provided with his very own personal manservant, David Rakoff takes us on a bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess, delving into the manic getting and spending that defines the North American way of life.
Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism, and Rakoff is there to map that frontier. He sits through the grotesqueries of "avant garde" vaudeville in Times Square immediately following 9/11. Twenty days without food allows him to experience firsthand the wonders of "detoxification," and the frozen world of cryonics, whose promise of eternal life is the ultimate status symbol, leaves him very cold indeed (much to our good fortune).
At once a Wildean satire of our ridiculous culture of overconsumption and a plea for a little human decency, Don't Get Too Comfortable is a bitingly funny grand tour of our special circle of gilded-age hell.
From the Hardcover edition.
David Rakoff's collection of autobiographical essays, Fraud, established him as one of our funniest, most insightful writers. In Don't Get Too Comfortable, Rakoff journeys into the land of plenty that is contemporary North America. Rarely have greed, vanity, selfishness, and vapidity been so mercilessly and wittily portrayed.
Whether contrasting the elegance of one of the last flights of the supersonic Concorde with the good times and chicken wings of Hooters Air, portraying the rarified universe of Paris fashion shows where an evening dress can cost as much as four years of college, or traveling to a private island off the coast of Belize to watch a soft-core Playboy TV shoot, where he is provided with his very own personal manservant, David Rakoff takes us on a bitingly funny grand tour of our culture of excess, delving into the manic getting and spending that defines the North American way of life.
Somewhere along the line, our healthy self-regard has exploded into obliterating narcissism, and Rakoff is there to map that frontier. He sits through the grotesqueries of "avant garde" vaudeville in Times Square immediately following 9/11. Twenty days without food allows him to experience firsthand the wonders of "detoxification," and the frozen world of cryonics, whose promise of eternal life is the ultimate status symbol, leaves him very cold indeed (much to our good fortune).
At once a Wildean satire of our ridiculous culture of overconsumption and a plea for a little human decency, Don't Get Too Comfortable is a bitingly funny grand tour of our special circle of gilded-age hell.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Reviews for Don't Get Too Comfortable
Rating: 3.565616810498688 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
381 ratings27 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I can't remember how on earth I found this book or who recommended it to me. Anyway, I'm glad I found it. And I'm very sad to have just discovered that the author died last year.He writes beautifully. Laugh out loud funny. Biting wit.So smart.Fabulous stuff.I'm ordering more from my local library.What is it? Oh - essays on the problems of the First World. Musings. Ruminating. But intelligently so.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Short, humorous pieces about a variety of topics. The author gets into things like the last flight of Concorde, Martha Stewart magazine, long-term fasting, and plastic surgery, and then makes his experience sound funny and ridiculous.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was just as trivial a read as the overlong title suggests, but if you enjoy reading well-spoken strangers' rants on trivial "problems," from comments on women's fashion to whining about the pointless difficulty of scavenger hunts, then you'll have fun with this. I found myself rolling my eyes a few times, but I liked it overall.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've come to realize that there is no prose I find more enjoyable than that of a snarky gay man. For me, this book is just rapturous. Hilarious, charming and witty, this little collection of essays promises an evening or two of unmitigated reading pleasure. Much recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5loved it!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was a good collection of essays, I particularly liked, "Love it or Leave It," "What is the Sound of One Hand Shopping?" and, "Off We're Gonna Shuffle." I like a good slightly-pessimistic-and-yet-actually-deeply-optimistic essay, and many of these pleased.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I love reading David's books and miss him so much! I like his humor and his honesty. I also enjoy listening to him read his books on the audio versions.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Funny stories - mostly about the angst of crazy first-world living issues like Marha Stewart, knowing the difference between sea salts, and cryogenetic freezing of your head. Not as funny as David Sedaris - but still amusing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good reading! I love books with essays, and his are always entertaining.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5These are funny little essays, many of which seem to start as reporting stories, but are more a launching pad for his thoughts. He’s a really good writer who reminds me a bit of David Sedaris for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. He’s kind of the low-key version of Sedaris, not as dark, weird, or quite as laugh-out-loud, but more subtle and observing the outside world as much as his own.
I’m a little hesitant to give it 4 stars because it’s not the kind of book that blows you away, it’s just a solid, well written, funny read. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I didn't really understand this book. The stories were amusing enough -- but didn't get how they all really connected. Maybe they weren't supposed too... and in that case, I didn't really like the book. I might be missing something, but who is this David Rakoff person and why did he get to try/do all these crazy things? I don't know... I was pretty bored by this, actually....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was just as trivial a read as the overlong title suggests, but if you enjoy reading well-spoken strangers' rants on trivial "problems," from comments on women's fashion to whining about the pointless difficulty of scavenger hunts, then you'll have fun with this. I found myself rolling my eyes a few times, but I liked it overall.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Of course you compare him to David Sedaris, who is Dave-Barry funnier (maybe Dave Barry’s evil twin). But Rakoff is the better writer, both a humorist and an intellectual whose elegant fey voice you can hear in every essay. His takedown of the Log Cabin Republicans is masterful and well thought out, and the scabrous paragraph he devotes to Karl Lagerfeld, who foolishly challenged him to write anything novel about fashion, had me falling off my chair.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I really wanted to like this book, but after struggling though the pretentious ego that is David Rakoff-I just couldn't do it. It is not what it seems. Expecting a humorous insight into today's throw-away spoiled society, I was disappointed to receive a soap box on the author's personal views. I'm sorry I bought the book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The full title, 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, might lead you to believe this book might be a little too much. Not so. Clever, but not pretentious. Funny, but not cruel. Angry, but never strident. Somehow I missed Rakoff's earlier Fraud, but I'm adding it to my wish list now.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fabulous essays by David Rakoff, who you may have heard on This American Life. His encounter with the Log Cabin Republicans is funny and thought-provoking.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed this series of essays, which had some laugh out loud moments, and a perspective that's original. However, as a fan of his first book of essays, Fraud, I admit that this one wasn't as good for me. Maybe I just enjoyed the subject matter of the other essays as the writing and wittiness are still present.If someone were looking for essays to read, I'd probably recommend Fraud first, but I wouldn't tell someone not to read this. I guess that's about as critical as I can get on this one.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More humorous essays from David Rakoff. Not as strong as "Fraud," but still worth a few reads.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Many reviewers have aptly compared this book to essays by David Sedaris. Sadly, these essays are not as funny as those by Sedaris. Though Rakoff sometimes tackles more serious topics than Sedaris, overall I was disappointed by these essays. The writing was good, the book was funny, but it didn't live up to the high bar set by Sedaris. Too many of the essays felt like set ups: he went to the Midnight Madness game night just so he could write it up; he went to the Brooklyn food foraging event just for an essay, etc. That might be okay if the resulting essay was really funny. But when the resulting essay is, "Eh, so the event wasn't that much fun. Or maybe I'm just the anti-fun..." it comes off as whining rather than amusing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My dog loves these dental treats, and they only sell them at Costco. Thus, I venture into the land of milk and honey and housewives once a month just to please a fourteen year old dog. I figure, the odds are slim that I actually get off my lazy ass and renounce my citizenship after a trip to capitalist mecca, no matter how much I bitch. In those moments, I tend to reach for this book. There's nothing like watching your neighbors stock up on ketchup like they might stop making it to make you question the whole system.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great book of essays. Made me laugh outloud
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this book - I am a huge fan of This American Life and the essayists who regularly contribute to it - that being said I thought this book definitely had some essays that were much much better than others. i found a few of them really on the boring side (the log cabin republican one and the one about freezing people after death - to name a couple) but on the other hand - I thought a few were really hilarious and above average - (loved the Concorde/Hooters one and the fasting one...)All in all - a good read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5...Did I say Fraud was one of the funniest books I've read? I meant Don't Get Too Comfortable. Why did I give this one an extra star? Possibly just because this book was my first exposure to Rakoff (I bought and listened to the audio book before I read anything by him). Occaisionally, you can feel Rakoff working a little too much to make his ostensible topic relate to a personal revelation, but who cares? He's always funny, regardless.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Didn't like it as much as his first book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Individual chapters about different events in his life. Smart with words and wit in his observations, but mostly uninteresting.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Funny, well written and sassy!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book kept popping up on my Amazon recommendations because I'm a big fan of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell. I'll admit, it was entertaining, but I doubt it will stick with me for too long. The book has Rakoff's essays on fasting, cryogenics, expensive simplicity, plastic surgery, and lots more. If you like Sedaris or Vowell, I bet you'll like this book, but don't expect to laugh out loud like you do with Sedaris's stories.All in all, a good way to spend a relaxing weekend.