Happy Go Lucky

David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso. Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine. As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter. In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

'It's hard to think of a better living practitioner of hilarious honesty than David Sedaris' The Times 'David Sedaris is funny - invariably. That's his gift' Los Angeles Times Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask-or not-was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes. But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he's stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine. As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger's teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone's son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter. In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris. Praise for Calypso 'Sedaris is the premier observer of our world and its weirdnesses' Adam Kay, author of This is Going to Hurt 'He's like an American Alan Bennett' Guardian 'Unquestionably the king of comic writing . . . Calypso is both funnier and more heartbreaking than pretty much anything out there' Hadley Freeman, Guardian

Every workplace has that one person you don't want to mess with. At James & Peterson Investigations, that would be Cameron Grant: sullen, grouchy, intimidating, oh yeah, and sexy as hell. He can make your soul wither with a single disapproving glare. And he never, ever socialises with his co-workers. This is why Maisie Wilkins, happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine, can't fathom why Cameron finally decided to show up at their annual office Christmas party. Every year he received an invite, and every year he failed to attend. But not this year. Curious as to why he's there, Maisie can't resist sitting next to Cameron. Before she knows it, she's had one too many drinks and is drunkenly hailing a cab back to his place. Office party flings are not something she normally does, but despite his intimidating character, Cameron has a charm she can't resist. Or maybe it was just those five gin and tonics blurring her judgement. Whatever the reason, Maisie now has to navigate the awkward, tension filled waters of sharing an office with someone she's slept with.

Paul Evans, a New Yorker has had a long and varied musical career. As a songwriter, Paul has written hits for himself as well as for Bobby Vinton – the 1962 classic, 'Roses Are Red, My Love', the Kalin Twins 'When' in 1957, and Elvis Presley 'The Next Step is Love' and 'I Gotta Know' and more. His songs have been featured in movies – Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas and John Waters' Pecker, television shows (Scrubs) and TV ads. He also wrote an off-off Broadway show, Cloverleaf Crisis, and the theme for the original network television show, CBS This Morning. Paul has spent a great deal of his life as a recording artist. From his 1959 and 60's hits: 'Seven Little Girls Sitting in The Back Seat', 'Midnight Special' and 'Happy Go Lucky Me' to his 1979 hit: 'Hello, This Is Joannie', #6 on the UK pop charts and Top 40 on Billboard's Country charts. This book describes his journey from getting his start in the music business, becoming part of the Brill's song-writing community and the sixty-three music-filled years that followed.

When Happy Go Lucky, a young pony, is sent to live at a riding school called Big Apple Barn, he misses his mom at Shoemaker Stables, and he has a lot to learn at his new home.

In David Sedaris' world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris' collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves. David Sedaris made his debut on NPR's Morning Edition with "SantaLand Diaries", recounting his strange-but-true experiences as an elf at Macy's, and soon became one of the show's most popular commentators. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life, and anything can happen.

40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Mike Leigh. Forty years on from its first performance at the Hampstead Theatre and original screening on BBC1 soon after, Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party - telling of two marriages spectacularly unravelling at an awkward neighbourhood drinks party - remains a pinnacle of British theatre. Here is the original script, complete with a new introduction by Mike Leigh describing the play's unlikely genesis, how it came to be made and where he believes it fits within his oeuvre as one of the country's leading writers and directors. 'The play came from my intuitive sense of the spirit and the flavour of the times, and from a growing personal fear of, and frustration with the suburban existence' Mike Leigh, from his new introduction 'Leigh's play isn't simply about marriage and Essex, but also about the unhappy state of the realm' Guardian