Less

 Robert Petkoff wrote Less and he won a Pulitzer price for his fiction plus plenty of other awards. The story is about a somewhat forgotten author whose career peaked in his 20's. Now he is 50 and his ex-boyfriend is getting married to another man. He is invited to the wedding but he doesn't want to spend his birthday watching his ex get married so he goes on a world tour/vacation. He gives lectures about another famous author with whom he had a relationship 25 years ago. So he goes on a vacation and he does have some fun but he also runs into some trouble. He meets old friends and many of them want to tell him about the wedding that he missed but he doesn't want to hear it. Some of his situations get pretty funny but they're not funny to him in the moment because he is a worrier. A sandstorm in Morocco ruins his camel ride. All the students he teaches at a German University come down with the flu so he thinks he is the carrier of the flu virus. He accidentally breaks his foot on a tropical island and when he is in the hospital a dog runs off with his favorite suit jacket and ruins it. As I read those last three sentences back I realize the situations weren't funny but they were funny to me as I read them. I thought this book was a charming piece of fine literature.