Calypso

Features

This book has been chosen by Renee Koijane for the 2024 Community Book Initiative as a reflection of the theme, stewardship. All profits from the purchases of this book during the 2024 Community Book Initiative event (running from 5/13/24-6/10/24) benefits local nonprofit Clean Up the Lake. 

About the Book:

David Sedaris returns with his most deeply personal and darkly hilarious book.

If you’ve ever laughed your way through David Sedaris’s cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you’re getting with Calypso. You’d be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it’s impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny–it’s a book that can make you laugh ’til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris’s powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris’s darkest and warmest book yet–and it just might be his very best.

About Renee Koijane:

Renee Koijane has lived in Tahoe nearly 24 years and has raised her two boys with her husband on the West Shore.  She is currently a working artist, and has spent time working on various community-driven projects.  These have included collaborations with Dr. Robb Gaffney, hosting a TED-X Tahoe City, a "Why The Huck" presentation focused on sports safety and public outreach for the Keep Tahoe True movement.  She also worked for many years to create a public use space at the Old Fire Station in Tahoe City (that outcome is still TBD).  She has a deep passion for environmental stewardship and has collaborated with the Plastic Pollution Coalition towards their mission of reducing plastic waste.  Her boys have been raised to be wary of mass consumerism and have developed a shared love for thrift stores and roadside finds.  (Although if they were to go shopping, it truly is only at Alpenglow Sports.) 

You can visit www.reneekoijaneart.com to view some of her work.

Why Renee Chose This Book:

This is a memoir by humorist David Sedaris.  I find him absolutely hilarious and actually wish he was one of my best friends.  Since he's not, I can only read all of his books.  What makes me love him even more, and is touched on in one chapter in this memoir, is his passion for picking up litter.  With his Fitbit on, he tracks his steps as he walks along the roadways near his home in the U.K., picking up trash, all of his own volition.  He's "my people."