Synopsis
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.
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
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Condition: very_good. Fast Free Shipping â" Very Good condition book with a firm cover and clean pages. Shows normal use and some light wear or limited notes markings. A solid, nice copy to enjoy. Seller Inventory # GWV.0385661851.VG
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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
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
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Condition: Very Good. First. Pages intact with possible writing/highlighting. Binding strong with minor wear. Dust jackets/supplements may not be included. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 39041922-6
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
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Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0385661851I4N00
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Published by
Doubleday Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 2005
ISBN 10: 0385661851
ISBN 13: 9780385661850
Used
Hardcover
Seller: Hourglass Books, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+, Not Price Clipped. Canadian First. Complete number line from 1 to 10; minor wear; otherwise a solid, clean copy with no marking or underlining; collectible condition. Book. Seller Inventory # 013966
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Seller: Bookbot, Prague, Czech Republic
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: As New. Leichte Kratzer / Abnutzungen / Druckstellen. David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable isn't quite the profoundly illuminating journey into the heart of American cultural and spiritual emptiness advertised on its dust cover. But the book's collected essays, which are brisk, bright, and rendered with a journalist's eye for detail, are funny and subversive. And Rakoff, Canadian-born and a naturalized American, is occasionally profound, never more so than when he ponders the motives of those who elect to go under a plastic surgeon's knife: "It must be murder to be an aging beauty, to see your future as an ignored spectator rushing up to meet you like the hard pavement. What a small sip of gall to be able to time with each passing year the ever-shorter interval in which someone's eyes focus upon you. And then shift away." That's gooseflesh-good writing, even though cosmetic enhancement--or life as a hotel worker or flying on the Concorde or being gay in a hetero world, all experiences in Rakoff's canon here--isn't distinctly American. (We'll grant him flying Hooters Air, though.) In short, goodies aplenty beckon as Rakoff, wit at the ready and cynicism turned up to 11, invites us to sneer at pomposity, hubris, and plain old human stupidity. Where's the queue? --Kim Hughes. Seller Inventory # e092eea0-6ea7-4f29-afda-4f0ae8e5275f
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Seller: The Guru Bookshop, Hereford, United Kingdom
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
hardcover. Condition: Fine. FIRST EDITION with dust jacket - rare and collectable - will send out 2nd class tracked post within 12 hours of receipt of order. Seller Inventory # mon0000145707
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Don't Get Too Comfortable
Seller: GoldBooks, Denver, CO, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # 90X54_37_0385661851