I’ve read everything David Sedaris has published — some things many times over.

Diaries can be private spaces, but these recollections were clearly written with public dissemination in mind.

Incuriosity is not one of David Sedaris’s flaws, and in this second tranche of his diaries, his appetite for observing the absurdities and idiosyncrasies of his fellow humans is deliciously rampant.

This isn’t to suggest that the book is bland or conceited – too much goes wrong for that – but we do get a version of his life that we haven’t quite seen before. This is an existence of first-class carriages and cabins.

Next to his pet peeves – rude people, over-friendly service staff and always, always litterbugs – more serious stuff is rarely dealt with: his agent’s dementia and sister Tiffany’s mental illness are presented almost as a diversion, at least until he reports their deaths. Compassion makes an occasional appearance.

The entries...are...as Sedaris admits, over-polished, and what we hear on the page is a spoken rather than a written voice.

... more cosmopolitan and assured than his first collection.

... he brings an outsider’s perspective to many historical moments. But his personal entries are the more touching ones.

Sedaris’ shrewdly sketched world travelogue, hilarious anecdotes, and frank reflections on loved ones, and life’s myriad absurdities and cruelties major and minor, make for a delectably sardonic, rueful, and provocative chronicle..

The celebrated humorist returns with more offhand observations on the weird and tiresome in these sparkling diary excerpts.

The flashpoints of the modern era...pop up throughout these entries, but mainly so the author can sail past them with his usual irreverence.