Vacationland

True Stories from Painful Beaches

by John Hodgman

Digital Audio

English language

Published Oct. 24, 2017 by Books on Tape.

OCLC Number:: 1008915877

(12 reviews)

Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now.

Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them.

Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some …

Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are. Source: www.booksontape.com/book/557020/vacationland/

4 editions

unsquare reviewed Vacationland by John Hodgman

Review of 'Vacationland' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I really love Hodgman’s work. He’s got a great comedic sensibility, and he’s the perfect narrator for his own stories. This is his first book without made-up facts, focusing instead on short memoirs of his life on vacation and how things changed for him after his sudden fame. These aren’t particularly eventful stories, and they probably won’t blow your mind with their unique insights, but they’re well-told and entertaining, and I loved every minute of the audio version. I just hope he decides to write a novel some day, if only because I love him best when he takes flights of fancy.

GG reviewed Vacationland by John Hodgman

Review of 'Vacationland' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I listened to this as an audiobook, which I highly recommend, because Hodgman's delivery adds a lot. It's the first book he's written that's an actual memoir, and it's terrific. It's not just funny, but it's insightful, charming, and self-aware. I think that even people who aren't already fans would enjoy it.