David Rakoff at the Big Picture

Tonight we saw David Rakoff read at the Big Picture in downtown Seattle. Rakoff was in town as part of the Nextbook lecture series. Last year I read Fraud, Rakoff's first book, so I was very excited to see he was coming to town (and for free too!).

At tonight's reading Rakoff read 'Including One Called Hell', an excellent essay from Fraud that recounts his experiences at a seminar called "Cultivating Compassion and Clarity" in which his instructor was none other than the habitually late "martial artist"/"Tibetan monk"/"musician" Steven Seagal. The second story Rakoff read tonight was a piece about his recent experience going through the naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen (Rakoff is originally from Canada). The new essay will appear in his forthcoming book Don't Get Comfortable, which is currently set for release in September of this year.

If you're not familiar with Rakoff's work, you can check out Salon's review of Fraud here. His style is similar to that of fellow This American Life contributors David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, so if you like their books you will probably like Rakoff too.