By David Sedaris
Little Brown & Company, 2026 272 pages. Nonfiction.
David Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend. He tries on the role of caretaker after his boyfriend Hugh's hip-replacement surgery, and both succeeds and fails. He buys his sister a cape and 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 taking a single photo. There is sadness here -- scrolling through his address book, he realizes how many dear friends are now deceased -- but also delight: he revels in authors' biographies, the malapropism that becomes a decades-long inside joke, and pair of well-made cotton underpants. He is bitten by a dog. A train passenger vomits in his face. A woman on the street late at night either sexually harasses him or doesn't. Look how hard it is to be alive! Throughout these essays, Sedaris shows how much there is to marvel at when you keep your head up and your eyes open, observing with warmth and curiosity this fascinating human species and the lands we inhabit.
David Sedaris is a master of his craft, and it’s evident in this latest collection. With his signature self-deprecating humor and sharp observations on everyday life, he turns the commonplace into something genuinely delightful. This set of essays feels lighter and more playful than his previous two collections, making it feel like a return to his earlier style of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day. While this time around I read the book, I’d strongly recommend the audiobook. Sedaris narrates it himself, and his delivery adds an extra layer of humor, timing, and subtle thoughtfulness.
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By Ali Wentworth
Harper, an imprint HarperCollins, 2022. 188 pages. Nonfiction
Like many, Ali Wentworth spent the pandemic seesawing between highs, lows, and baking an unnecessary amount of chocolate cake. Between binging every tv show in existence to conquering TikTok to becoming a (semi) empty-nester, Ali experienced her share of turmoil (including an early case of Covid), but she also grew a little, learned a lot, and found comfort in some unexpected people and places. In Ali's Well That Ends Well, Wentworth turns her gimlet eye to the year no one saw coming. With her signature irreverent style, she shares the most hysterical, absurd, and sometimes trying episodes that her family endured during the terrible global pandemic. Thoroughly relatable, absolutely charming, and filled with moments both hilarious and poignant, this terrific collection once again showcases the comedic genius of a beloved star.
By Ira Madison
Random House, 2025. 226 pages. Nonfiction
In this inviting and joyfully raucous collection of sixteen original essays, written with a rare combination of humor and sharpness, Ira Madison III combines memoir and cultural criticism to offer an updated pop-culture manifesto. As a teenager in the early 2000s, Madison's life changed when he read Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Inspired by the revelation that discussions of pop culture could be rigorous, not only reserved for the likes of At the Movies or Buffy the Vampire Slayer message boards, Madison went on to make a career of dissecting pop culture from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to Britney Spears. Here, he reveals his journey to becoming a prominent cultural critic and screenwriter, sharing stories about growing up as a Black, gay man in Milwaukee and unearthing the pop phenomena that shaped his youth and the lives of so many. In this enlightening, unforgettable trip through the '90s and the 2000s, Madison reflects on learning about gay sex from his mom's Lil' Kim CDs; the most devastating election of his adolescence (not George W. Bush winning re-election in 2004, but Jennifer Hudson losing American Idol); and never getting his driver's license in high school, making him just like Cher Horowitz in Clueless: "A virgin who can't drive." Revel in his examination of Black fatherhood through The Cosby Show and Family Matters, and discover how Jerry Springer impacted queer representation on-screen. In each essay, Madison unearths how pop culture shapes us, both for the better and for the worse. Alternately irreverent and emotionally resonant, Pure Innocent Fun will leave you laughing and inspired.
JK
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