Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary

I own a copy of this book and upon describing it to a friend they were interested, hence the gifting. Book arrived in great condition quickly and they love it! The stories all seem to remind us of someone we know, for better or worse, and thats what endears it to us so. Highly reccommend!

I simply can't believe all the poor reviews this book received. I love short story genre and am very saddened by the fact that there are so relatively few artist who are truly good at it -- Maupassant, Saki [H.H. Munro], Maugham, T.C. Boyle. (Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gogol don't count. Unless one's Russian is good enough to read them and one's knowledge of Russian culture and history is good enough to appreciate them). With this in mind, David Sedaris is a little like an oasis in the modern wasteland."Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" is one of the most biting and hilarious collections of short prose Sedaris' acerbic wit has offered to date. The only disappointment I found is the actual story of "The Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk." You see, I expected this to be a variant of an old joke I once heard (I think I was still in college then, so it was a long time ago. No -- really long time ago... Yep, that long.) The joke went something like this:"So this squirrel and this chipmunk get married. And everyone tells them -- you can't get married. By God!... the two of you are just soooo different, you aren't even the same species. But the answer was always the same: 'We love each other,' Squirrel would say. 'More than anything in the world,' Chipmunk would add.And so they did get married. And year after year went by. And peace and contentment settled upon the little furry family. But their joy was besmirched by one thing: no children. They BOTH wanted to have children. Oh, how they wanted to have children. More than anything they longed to hear pitter-patter of little hybrid SquiMunk paws in their burrow. So they went to see Squirrel's rabbi. That wasn't helpful. Then they went to talk to Chipmunk's mullah. Same result.'Maybe we should go and see a doctor?' said Squirrel at breakfast one day.'You are brilliant!' said Chipmunk. And so, to the doctor they went. The elderly white-haired veterinarian appeared very thoughtful. He took them to separate exam rooms and performed thorough physicals and took detailed histories. His assistant drew multiple tiny vials for all sorts of test of every conceivable body fluid that could be tested. And the fur. The fur hairs got tested too (you just never know...)A week later both were sitting in the vet's consultation room holding their joint breath waiting for the doctor to give them the results."Is it me?" asked Chipmunk."Or me?" barely whispered Squirrel..."Well," said the doctor. "I am not sure how to tell you, but it is actually both of you.""Wha... What do you mean?" asked Chipmunk."You see," said the doctor pointing at the chipmunk, "you are... a... um... a boy." The doctor then looked at the squirrel and said: "And so are you..."OK, ok, I know this is VERY politically INcorrect (and in some circles, I'd probably get crucified for it), but I know, I just know, that David Sedaris would make it work! If anything, it would probably be even funnier coming from him. Sigh... maybe he'll use this joke in one of his later books... you know? "Squirrel and Chipmunk -- the Sequel" or "Squirrel and Chipmunk Ride Again... For A Few Dollars More..."Naaaahh.... He probably won't.So... back to the review. For the exception of the title story, I absolutely loved the book. And for all the nay-sayers. Have you ever heard of "allegory?..." "fable?... For that matter have you ever heard of AEsop?... Jean de La Fontaine?... Ivan Krylov?... No matter. I think this book is one of the BEST of Sedaris' offerings.

I hate Aesop. He was mean-spirited and horrible, and assumed the worst of the human (and animal) spirit, and was needlessly gross and brutal.David Sedaris is a hilariously funny version, with keen-eyed and often brutal insights into human nature, but also with an occasional sweetness that surprised and touched me.I loved reading this book, but felt I had to be on guard, because you can't trust your heart to these stories. Sedaris doesn't care if he kills and maims along the way to his lesson. Unhappy lives and unhappy endings happened to a lot of these characters, even ones who didn't necessarily deserve it.The story about the sheep broke my freaking heart. Seriously. I cried. The illustrations by Ian Falconer of Olivia fame made the story even more heartbreaking. At the beginning of the story I kept going back to giggle at the insanely cheerful little lamb sitting with his mother. I loved the lamb. And then at the end, he got his eyes plucked out because his mother was kind of vacant and silly. Where was the justice in that story?A few huge, dark downers set the tone of the book for me, and it was a bit hard to read while making sure I didn't actually end up caring about anyone just in case they got slaughtered. But - it was hilarious, too! The little quips about each of the animals were fantastic. Some were based on little-known animal facts and some were based on human nature, but Sedaris managed to slip a really good bit into pretty much every page. The pages are small, so that's saying something.I'm too much of a delicate flower for this kind of book, but I still enjoyed it a lot. If you've got a strong stomach and care less about all the sweet little creatures, then you will adore this book and will make your spouse come into the room so you can read parts out loud. It's that well crafted.Falconer's illustrations were spot-on to the tone of the book. A little too gross in places, adorable and heart-wrenching in others. Really enhanced my experience of the book, and I can't imagine one without the other.

David Sedaris has long been my favorite humor writer. His musings on his life with boyfriend Hugh in France are often hysterical; better yet are his stories about his looney family, including talented writer Amy. This collection is clearly a departure for Sedaris, and I can understand why some fans may have been disappointed. Fortunately, I heard a reading of the titular story before purchasing the book, so I knew what I was getting into here. The stories are admittedly uneven -- some are extremely funny and some fall a bit flat. Likewise, a few are rather ugly and at times disgusting. However, there's enough truth and humor in these tales for me to whole-heartedly recommend it.This review is for the Kindle version. I would have purchased this book when it was first released; however, I have moved almost completely to reading on the Kindle, and I'm always concerned about purchasing books on Kindle that have many pictures. These books usually look so flat and muddled on the Kindle. With the release of the new Kindle Fire, though, I decided to take the chance. Indeed, the pictures when viewed on the Fire are lovely and can be enlarged -- quite a difference from how they look on my regular Kindle. So I'm recommending the book for the Kindle Fire version only. If you have the regular Kindle, then I suggest purchasing the hard cover edition instead.

If you taught a creative writing group and if one of your students produced this work, then you might be mildly pleased. They have used the idea of the anthropomorphization of animals as a device to look at human life. But then you realize that their idea is flawed and repetitive. It's not witty or insightful just labored student writing you decide to encourage them for they are young and heavy-handed in their views and what appears new is actually old and tired with a beard.This is what this book is like disappointing and to be honest embarrassing that this has been published .

Although I own and love all of Sedaris books, when it came to this I hesitated a few years before taking the plunge as reviews were slightly worrying and I did not want my views on Sedaris to change for the worse. What was I thinking?!? How could a mind that I admired so much and found endlessly entertaining produce anything less than satisfying to an avid reader like me? It turns out that the book is indeed completely different from his usual collection of essays of varying length and levels of light-heartedness, but you can see the Sedaris mind at work in every tale in this collection of fables that never fails to hit the spot. It is often very close to the bone - to the point of being slightly cruel, perhaps, and certainly painful - but it is an allegorical masterpiece in which all of us cannot fail to recognise some part of ourselves or of people around us. I particularly love 'The Sick Rat and the Healthy Rat': it is a great help when faced with a certain kind of person (you'll know what I mean when you read it, I don't want to spoil it for you). One word of warning, though: brace yourself for this ride as it can get a bit uncomfortable, but it is worth it.

I’ve enjoyed many of the authors books, but this one just doesn’t cut it I’m afraid.

Very enjoyable tales of animals (human) foibles. Dry as a bone, sharp as a tach,and grinningly funny. Comes Highly Recommended.

Not what I was expecting from this author. Die hard fans will probably love it but I prefer his other works. I found this all a bit unpleasant and didn't finish it.