The Land and Its People by David Sedaris

Pull up a chair near the window. The sea air will do you good, and so will an afternoon spent with David Sedaris.

In The Land and Its People, the collection following Happy-Go-Lucky, Sedaris turns his sharp, generous eye toward what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend. He tries on the role of caretaker after his partner Hugh’s hip-replacement surgery, and both succeeds and fails. He buys his sister a cape. He discusses his brother with a jaded Duolingo bot. He walks dozens of miles with his friend Dawn and challenges her to eat a truck tire.

Ever adding to his list of “Countries I Have Been To,” he rides a horse named Tequila in Guatemala, buys a bespoke priest’s cassock in Vatican City, and goes on safari in Kenya without snapping a single photo.

There’s sadness here, too. Scrolling through his address book, he realizes how many dear friends are now gone. But there’s so much delight, too: the malapropism that becomes a decades-long inside joke, the pure joy of a well-made pair of cotton underpants. He is bitten by a dog. A passenger vomits in his face. Look how hard it is to be alive!

These essays are acerbic and tender, playful and profound, the work of a writer who keeps his head up and his eyes open.

It’s the kind of book you’ll want to read aloud, even when no one’s listening. A hardcover worth lingering over on a rainy coastal afternoon.

Stop by and let us wrap one up for you. We think you’ll laugh. We think you’ll feel a little less alone.

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