21 relatos de melancolía, trasiegos familiares y una tortuga. Puro Sedaris.

In nine books spanning 20 years, David Sedaris has riffed on matters both cosmic and mundane, from growing up with his tight-knit Greek-American family in the suburbs of Raleigh, N.C., to his account of working as an elf at Macy’s in his well-known essay "SantaLand Diaries."

Appearances on NPR and in The New Yorker, later published in book form, burnished his reputation for caustic, sharply observed wit. 

His new book, Calypso (Little, Brown, 259 pp., ★★★½ out of four), his first collection in five years, takes a more melancholy, self-reflective turn, as Sedaris, 61, confronts aging and mortality.

It has fewer laugh-out-loud moments, but feels more substantial and rewarding than some of his earlier efforts, especially his underwhelming previous collection of essays, Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls. (Theft By Finding, excerpts from his 1977-2002 diaries, was published last year.)