As promised, this month we’re reading an American comedy classic of your choice as a comparison to the British comedy analysis I did last month.
To all the new subscribers, welcome! I’m recreating the library-browsing experience here by showing you my snapshots of the first page, middle page, and final paragraph of each book. Browse through the excerpts below, and then vote for your favorite! I’ll read it and then analyze it as a counterpoint to the classic styles of British comedy I mentioned in last month’s book battle (click on this link if you missed my analysis using Douglas Adams’ “Restaurant at the End of the Universe”).
1. Tricky Twenty-Two by Janet Evanovich
This book is in the Stephanie Plum series, the same one where the first book was featured in the movie “One For the Money” by Katherine Heigl…remember this?
Page 1:
And here’s the midpoint:
Then the tale ends on this note:
2. Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
This one is a collection of 6 short stories, all based around Christmas, by the legendary comic David Sedaris. (Side note: I took his MasterClass on writing comedy online, and it was excellent. Highly recommend.)
Page 1:
The middle page:
And David’s ends with:
3. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
This last one is an epistolary novel, all random letters, emails, report cords, police reports, etc. The whole thing is a girl’s conquest to find (& understand) her eccentric mother.
First pages:
That was super short, so you get an extra peak:
The midpoint:
And the final note:
You have 1 week to vote!
Share it with your friends to get more votes on your favorite.
Since SantaLand Diaries by David Sedaris won the vote, I dived right in!
I just finished reading it, and wow, are we going to have fun discussing American humor as portrayed here compared to UK humor. 😉
Have any of you read David Sedaris' work before? And do you prefer his style to traditional UK humor? If so, tell me why! I'm so curious...
Stay tuned for the review & my full take on USA vs. UK humor coming next week.