Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris

There was quite a bit I liked about this book, but unfortunately, there was more that I didn’t like. Since the funny bits were just slightly outweighed by the rather annoying bits, I give it about 2 1/2 stars.
David Sedatris is back with another book full of essays about his childhood, his life overseas with his partner Hugh, and other random stories about his life. Some of them are very, very funny. I particularly like stories about his rather insane family. Others were dull. The piece that seems to inspire the title, about David seeking out a taxidermy owl for Hugh for Valentine’s Day cracked me up. Another story, about the trash that litters the picturesque trail to his house in England, was pretty damn boring.
Just about every story had at least a line or two that made me smile. That is, until I got to his fictional works which comprise the last several chapters of the book. Most of them were satirical letters; one was a poem about dogs. These were both boring and annoying. I should be his ideal audience member! He’s making fun of conservatives, which is one of my favorite hobbies. Instead what he thought would come off as witty and dry came off as whiny and obnoxious. I definitely should have just stopped when the nonfictional portion of the book stopped.
A special note about the audio version of this book, which is what I listen to: do not listen to the audio version of this book. David Sedaris, a very very funny man, has a horrible speaking voice. It is extremely high-pitched and does not modulate when he’s reading. In addition to that, some of the stylistic choices made by whoever produced the audiobook were terrible. A few of the passages are obviously ones that he had read aloud to a group, so there is a laugh track while I’m listening to it. I do not need laugh tracks on my books, I don’t even like them on my TV shows. In addition to that there are long, sometimes 15 to 30 second long, musical breaks between each chapter. Those are incredibly annoying, especially since each chapter is rather short. This would mean that I would be on the treadmill at the gym for 15 minutes and have to listen to at least a couple of these breaks, which consisted of really awful music. So I would probably rate the writing of the book at about 2 1/2 stars, but the audiobook deserves maybe one