Vacationland

I’ve always liked John Hodgman.

His long-running “Judge John Hodgman” podcast is consistently funny, and the concept is creative. I appreciate that he did something with a podcast other than “have a podcast.”

It hadn’t occurred to me to read any of his books until recently.

Vacationland is interesting. It’s short (a little more than 200 pages), and it’s a breezy read. It’s funny, yes, but it’s also wistful (that’s the word Neil Gaiman used to describe it on the book jacket, and since it’s a good word that aptly describes the book I’m using it here to describe it for myself).

There’s also a section on raccoons that I deeply agree with because racoons can adapt to any environment and they have thumbs.

This is passage:

Raccoons are beyond fear, and they are assholes. I tried to chase a raccoon off our porch as it was casually emptying our bird feeder into its fat mouth. As I yelled, it turned its head and eyed me with such casual contempt that I apologized to it.

And that is why I enjoyed this book.