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Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
October 2010
On Sale: September 21, 2010
240 pages ISBN: 0385525249 EAN: 9780385525244 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The inimitably witty David Rakoff, New York Times
bestselling author of Don’t Get Too Comfortable, defends the
commonsensical notion that you should always assume the
worst, because you’ll never be disappointed. In this deeply funny (and, no kidding, wise and poignant)
book, Rakoff examines the realities of our sunny, gosh
everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that,
pretty much as a universal rule, the best is not yet to
come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served,
and your dreams won’t come true. The book ranges from the personal to the universal,
combining stories from Rakoff’s reporting and accounts of
his own experiences: the moment when being a tiny child no
longer meant adults found him charming but instead meant
other children found him a fun target; the perfect late
evening in Manhattan when he was young and the city seemed
to brim with such possibility that the street shimmered in
the moonlight—as he drew closer he realized the streets
actually flickered with rats in a feeding frenzy. He also
weaves in his usual brand Oscar Wilde–worthy cultural
criticism (the tragedy of Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, for
instance). Whether he’s lacerating the musical Rent for its cutesy
depiction of AIDS or dealing with personal tragedy, his
sharp observations and humorist’s flair for the absurd will
have you positively reveling in the power of negativity.
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