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What I Ate in One Year (And Related Thoughts)

by Stanley Tucci

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Frog said: "
Terrifying anthropological interrogation of the toxicity and corruption of celebrity culture.

Wait, what? It's supposed to be about food? Yeah the food stuff is decent (though Stanley Tucci appears to mainly eat fish and pasta, and rarely eats food fr
Terrifying anthropological interrogation of the toxicity and corruption of celebrity culture.

Wait, what? It's supposed to be about food? Yeah the food stuff is decent (though Stanley Tucci appears to mainly eat fish and pasta, and rarely eats food from any culture outside of Western Europe). Half the book is taken up with Tucci's obsessive determination to fill his celebrity friend pokedeck, and celebrity obsession generally. It's very weird. How does a person who is legitimately pretty famous and who works with other famous people every day get through life with such a paralysing celebrity obsession?

Almost every single celeb he meets is the bestest, most talented, gracious, amazingly good looking, talentest, bestest nicest specialist dear dear dear beloved friend ever.

Except for Sam Rockwell, who Tucci spends 20 pages tearing to shreds because he was once 20 minutes early for a dinner party. (Is it me or is it crazy that Tucci brags non-stop about what an amazing host he is, then admits he forces guests to either wait in the rain or go look for a pub if they happen to be early? Yeah people who show up early are annoying, but I can't imagine doing anything as inhospitable as refuse to open the door to invited guests.)

Near the end there's a throwaway line: "Went to my friend Amy's mother's funeral." Presumably Amy is a reasonably good friend as attending someone's mother's funeral is a fairly intimate thing to do, but poor Amy is a Non Celebrity, so is relegated to a mere seven words. She's also practically the only friend mentioned in the entire book who doesn't get about nine superlatives before her name, and the absence is jarring. Poor Amy. Poor motherless, unfamous Amy. Hope she at least gets some good pasta out of the friendship. On the flipside he meets Woody Harrelson once and they immediately plan to spend Christmas together.

At the end is a lengthy chapter detailing a bird shooting holiday at Guy Ritchie's house, which Tucci should release as a standalone folk horror short story. I genuinely can't tell if Tucci is deliberately trying to portray Guy Ritchie as an inbred chinless psychopath or if it's just a gorgeous utterly un-self aware accident.

It's a terrifying insider look at the life and arcane rituals of the ultra-wealthy English aristocracy (when they get bored of pretending to be working class gangstas innit guvnor?). Tucci winds up seated next to a man whose entire job is to breed and raise tame animals in captivity so that lazy rich people can kill them, for those who want to hunt but can't be bothered to do literally anything involved in actual hunting. At one point during a dinner party/Bacchanalian feast Guy Richie notices that the char on a piece of fish isn't the perfect shade of brown, so he snatches it off the plate and storms into the kitchen, elbowing aside 20 chefs manacled to stainless steel ranges, to forensically micro-char the fish to his desired specifications himself. While, presumably, the current batch of chefs are frogmarched into the courtyard and shot, while a fresh batch are retrieved from whatever padlocked cupboard they're kept in.

On their final day Guy Ritchie discloses his secret volcano lair/Space 2001-esque outdoor BBQ laboratory, and Tucci sets the scene by describing an ominous white butcher's bag leaking blood. Tension rises as Ritchie preps the BBQ with his own handmade charcoal (he makes his own charcoal, because of course he fucking does). By the time the contents of the bag are finally revealed I was 1000% emotionally prepared for it to be the soon-to-be-cannibalised live baby of a person who once arrived ten minutes early for dinner.

There's a great bit where Tucci's brother-in-law John Krasinski (who almost dies of hypothermia on this trip, and who presumably has read the Most Dangerous Game) goes to Tucci's room and just goes, "dude WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" for about ten minutes straight. I don't care about celebrities but if I could have dinner with one famous person it would now be John Krasinki, an actor I've never seen in anything, purely for the chance to get his take on "The Wicker Man but with billionaires." ...more "

Jul 02, 2026 11:37AM · see review

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The Land and Its People

by David Sedaris

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Frog said: " This is being branded as "anti-woke" but it's mostly just a bit boring. I've been a huge David Sedaris fan for years, but the stories in this book are meandering rambles mainly devoid of any humour, structure or point. There's a lot of celeb name-dro This is being branded as "anti-woke" but it's mostly just a bit boring. I've been a huge David Sedaris fan for years, but the stories in this book are meandering rambles mainly devoid of any humour, structure or point. There's a lot of celeb name-dropping, bragging about his success and money, and self-defence ranting about how his success is because he works so hard, and the aspiring artists and writers he knew when younger didn't make it because they didn't work as hard as him.

1. Care and Feeding - David's partner Hugh has a hip replacement operation. I don't take an issue with the whole 'David expects Hugh to take care of everything' because that's clearly their whole schtick and obviously Hugh doesn't have a problem with it, but this essay just isn't funny or original in any way.

2. Little America - I actually liked this essay about the decline of manners (people putting their feet on seats and playing music in public), and it's classic Sedaris territory. It's not original but as an essay it's decently well-structured and actually builds to a punchline.

3. Sweet essay celebrating David's many-decades long friendship with his former college girlfriend. Probably one of the better essays in the book, this has lots of sharply observed detail on the minutiae of travel and every day life. It's not funny but it's nice enough to read.

4. Enough is Enough - angry old man shaking fists at clouds about a bunch of random stuff: one of his many expensive NYC apartments has scaffolding on it; he sometimes gets texts from a charity he supports; CVS keeps certain products locked up. No point, no structure, doesn't build to an ending. Just pointless Grandpa Simpson rambling that jumps from annoyance to annoyance without settling on any point or greater theme, then it just aimlessly ends.

5. Friendly Face: David tries to link three separate incidents: a rent boy tries to pick David up in an Atlanta hotel; he's nearly mugged in NYC; a female sex worker/junkie follows and harasses him. This essay rambles so much and is all over the place, opening with pages rambling about how hard it is to describe what people look like before getting to the actual meat of the story. There's nothing really linking the three separate encounters other than that they're all incidents where he might need to remember what the individuals involved looked like.

6. Trophy Room - David goes on safari, and lists all the animals he saw. This reads like any wealthy person's Instagram captions. The end of the essay is David trying to make some kind of deep and meaningful humanitarian point about travel to fancy safari resorts emphasises wealth gaps; how cruel humans can be; and how even if you can't afford safari you can enjoy nature by going outside and watching squirrels. It's really weird. David Sedaris is famous for bitchy wit, and that's what his readers want, not bland sanctimonious platitudes about social issues.

7. My Finances, In Brief: David rants about how his dad was a massive cheapskate, again. His previous essays on the same subject are just much funnier. David's dad being a food hoarder and accidentally eating a hat was both grotesque and darkly funny. "Dad told me he was putting $10k in my bank account every year but it turned out he lied" just isn't funny or interesting. Having said that the bit about David getting his friend to repair holes in his underwear because he's too cheap to buy new ones (despite buying million dollar apartments the way most of us buy socks) is pretty funny. The subtext that David is falling into the trap of becoming like his dad, but ultimately resists, gives this more weight than most of the essays. I'm just not sure I believe that David is someone who sews up holes in underwear to save money since he's spent years writing about how he loves blowing lots and lots of money on clothes.

8. The Doctor Is In: Essay about being in therapy, and the fact his first serious boyfriend cheated on him repeatedly, and he lacked the self-esteem to dump him. I feel bad because this essay is very heartfelt, but it's just not funny and has way too much bragging that he's friends with celebrities now.

9. The Hem of His Garment: David and a bunch of celebs meet the Pope. How do you make meeting the Pope, then teaming up with Julia Louis-Dreyfus to gatecrash a papal supplies shop so you can buy a cassock, so boring?

10. Punching Down: Meandering pointless rant about woke culture, which turns into rambling about how Kids Today are all spoiled special snowflakes. He also repeats word for word an anecdote from an earlier book where he witnesses a Japanese woman cleaning up after her son and concludes that Japanese parenting is superior.

11. In Lieu of My Biography: David talks about his favourite author biographies, does a ton of celebrity name-dropping, and concludes that he's too boring and not alcoholic/druggy enough (despite having been a hardcore substance abuser and literal meth addict for years) to deserve a bio. A lot of this essay feels like reading the Wikipedia summaries of the other books mentioned. ...more "

Sep 24, 2026 04:35AM · see review

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