David Sedaris

My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face
by Michael Ian Black
Published 14 Jul 2008

So, given all these amazing similarities, how is it that David Sedaris is winning various literary honors and I am doing commercials for Sierra Mist? Which is why I say again: Hey, David Sedaris—why don’t you just go ahead and suck it? It’s important to understand that when you read the words “David Sedaris” and “suck it,” that they are not actually directed at David Sedaris the person, but more at the idea of David Sedaris—the idea of a diminutive comedic memoirist out there selling millions of books and living in Paris with his boyfriend, Hugh. Now, perhaps the idea of David Sedaris coincides pretty closely with the actual David Sedaris, but only because he’s leading a very specific kind of life that I feel is designed to make people think worse of me.

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If this sounds appealing, feel free to contact me, Head of the Membership Committee, at my mom’s house, where I am temporarily residing, or at my place of employment (the address of which I will give when I have a place of employment). Hey, David Sedaris—Why Don’t You Just Go Ahead and Suck It? FIRST of all, let me start by saying that I am a David Sedaris fan. Everybody is a David Sedaris fan, which is part of the reason I hate him so much. People who are as universally beloved as David Sedaris are, in my opinion, highly suspect. After all, how can so many people love you if you are not, on some level, a total shithead? I would feel much better about David Sedaris if he occasionally threw a telephone at somebody. That’s the kind of behavior I have grown accustomed to from the celebrated, and it would greatly relieve me to know that David Sedaris is capable of such lawlessness.

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That’s the kind of behavior I have grown accustomed to from the celebrated, and it would greatly relieve me to know that David Sedaris is capable of such lawlessness. A perfect target: fellow memoirist and Nazi hunter Elie Wiesel. How incredible would that be? The winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor hurls telephone at octogenarian Nobel Laureate. Awesome. Even better, it would provide both of them reams of material for future memoirs. In the business world, we call that “win-win.” But no. Instead, we can expect David Sedaris to continue puttering through his quiet life, trolling Parisian cafés and bookstores, jotting down the occasional bon mot for his adoring American public.

Me Talk Pretty One Day
by David Sedaris
Published 4 Jun 2001

ISBN: 978-0-316-07365-3 Contents Copyright Page One Go Carolina Giant Dreams, Midget Abilities Genetic Engineering Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist You Can’t Kill the Rooster The Youth in Asia The Learning Curve Big Boy The Great Leap Forward Today’s Special City of Angels A Shiner Like a Diamond Nutcracker.com Deux See You Again Yesterday Me Talk Pretty One Day Jesus Shaves The Tapeworm Is In Make That a Double Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa 21 Down The City of Light in the Dark I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag Picka Pocketoni I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed Smart Guy The Late Show I’ll Eat What He’s Wearing Also by David Sedaris Acclaim for David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day “Blisteringly funny.” — David Cobb Craig, People “His most sidesplitting work to date. The stories chronicling Sedaris’s time in Paris are painfully funny fish-out-of-water tales about the difficulty of learning the language and the near-impossibility of translating the culture.… The simple, effortless comic build of these stories had me howling in the airport, my hands shaking, my eyes glistening with tears.” — Sarah Hepola, Austin Chronicle “Mercy, mercy! David Sedaris is dangerously funny.” — Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Hilarious and insightful.… Mr.

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” — James Reed, Columbia Missourian “There is no contemporary writer as reliably funny as David Sedaris. His best humor seems to come from the same place as — dare I think it? — Mark Twain’s. It’s dark and suffering, extremely caustic, skillfully exaggerated, but recognizably true.” — Marilyn Bailey, Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Sedaris’s genius lies in transforming strangeness, obsessive voyeurism, and endearingly snotty observations into wildly entertaining art.” — Rob Stout, Providence Journal “David Sedaris is our generation’s James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz, Woody Allen, and Mark Twain wrapped in a compact package with a pixie’s voice.

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.… Whether you listen to a Sedaris story or read one, the effect is blissfully, elegantly funny.… Sedaris uncovers what makes everyday life amusing enough to keep us living it.” — Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel “It’s all hilarious.… Listen to me: you have got to read David Sedaris. He just might be the funniest writer in North America.” — Vue (Edmonton, Canada) ALSO BY David Sedaris Barrel Fever Naked Holidays on Ice For my father, Lou One Go Carolina ANYONE WHO WATCHES EVEN THE SLIGHTEST amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on the door of some seemingly ordinary home or office.

Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions
by Christian Lander
Published 5 Aug 2008

They know the jokes are coming, they know the punch lines, but they feel the need to hear the author actually say them. White people universally love David Sedaris, so if they ever ask you, “Who are your favorite authors?” you should always reply, “David Sedaris.” They will instantly launch into a story about how much they love his work, and the conversation will go from there, and you won’t have to talk about books anymore. This is also safer than saying Jonathan Franzen, Dave Eggers, or Shakespeare. White people are very divided on these authors and might actually ask you questions about why you like them. Stick with David Sedaris and you can’t lose! If they do press you, just say, “I read a lot, and I never laugh out loud when I read, but Sedaris is just brilliant.”

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They will also make a note to try to find that wine, and when they can’t find it, your status will rise even higher. Wines that are acceptable: red, white (less so). Wines that are unacceptable (unless to be consumed in an ironic fashion): white Zinfandel, wine in a box, rosé, fortified wine, Arbor Mist, Chinese cooking wine. 25 David Sedaris For many of you, this item will be confusing, as you will be wondering who exactly this David Sedaris is. He is a humorist who writes for The New Yorker and has several books, including Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice. His stuff is kind of funny, but white people go crazy and will pay hundreds of dollars to hear him read from his own book. Let me say that again: they will pay money to see someone read from a book they have already read.

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Contents Title Page Dedication 1 Coffee 2 Religions Their Parents Don’t Belong To 3 Film Festivals 4 Assists 5 Farmer’s Markets 6 Organic Food 7 Diversity 8 Barack Obama 9 Making You Feel Bad for Not Going Outside 10 Wes Anderson Movies 11 Asian Girls 12 Nonprofit Organizations 13 Tea 14 Having Black Friends 15 Yoga 16 Gifted Children 17 Hating Their Parents 18 Awareness 19 International Travel 20 Being an Expert on Your Culture 21 Writer’s Workshops 22 Having Two Last Names 23 Microbreweries 24 Wine 25 David Sedaris 26 Manhattan (and Now Brooklyn, Too!) 27 Marathons 28 Not Having a TV 29 ’80s Night 30 Wrigley Field 31 Snowboarding 32 Veganism/Vegetarianism 33 Marijuana 34 Architecture 35 The Daily Show with Jon Stewart / The Colbert Report 36 Brunch 37 Renovations 38 Arrested Development 39 Netflix 40 Apple Products 41 Indie Music 42 Sushi 43 Plays 44 Public Radio 45 Asian Fusion Food 46 The Sunday New York Times 47 Liberal Arts Degrees 48 Whole Foods and Grocery Co-ops 49 Vintage 50 Irony 51 Living by the Water 52 Sarah Silverman 53 Dogs 54 Kitchen Gadgets 55 Apologies 56 Lawyers 57 Documentaries 58 Japan 59 Natural Medicine 60 Toyota Prius 61 Bicycles 62 Knowing What’s Best for Poor People 63 Expensive Sandwiches 64 Recycling 65 Coed Sports 66 Divorce 67 Standing Still at Concerts 68 Michel Gondry 69 Mos Def 70 Difficult Breakups 71 Being the Only White Person Around 72 Study Abroad 73 Gentrification 74 Oscar Parties 75 Threatening to Move to Canada 76 Bottles of Water 77 Musical Comedy 78 Multilingual Children 79 Modern Furniture 80 The Idea of Soccer 81 Graduate School 82 Hating Corporations 83 Bad Memories of High School 84 T-shirts 85 The Wire 86 Shorts 87 Outdoor Performance Clothes 88 Having Gay Friends 89 St.

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)
by David Sedaris
Published 29 May 2017

She’ll do the same on Tuesday and wind up giving Hugh a check for $50. About the Author David Sedaris is the author of the books Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England. davidsedarisbooks.com @davidsedaris davidsedaris Books by David Sedaris Theft by Finding Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk When You Are Engulfed in Flames Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Me Talk Pretty One Day Holidays on Ice Naked Barrel Fever Want more?

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Copyright © 2017 by David Sedaris Cover design by Jeffrey Jenkins Cover art by Suzanne Bircher (sign painter) Author photograph by Jeffrey Jenkins Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com.

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ISBN 978-0-316-30851-9 E3-20170502-NF-DA Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Author’s Note Introduction 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 About the Author Books by David Sedaris Discover More For Dawn “Friendship Flower” Erickson Author’s Note Occasionally in this book I have changed people’s names or slightly altered their physical descriptions. In some cases I’ve changed a name because the person in the preceding entry was also a Jim or a Mary, and I wanted to avoid confusion.

Navel Gazing: True Tales of Bodies, Mostly Mine (But Also My Mom's, Which I Know Sounds Weird)
by Michael Ian Black
Published 5 Jan 2016

My first target was the guy immediately ahead of me on the charts, David Sedaris. I don’t know David, and certainly had nothing against him, but I figured if he had a sense of humor, he might play along, which could be good for both of us. Obviously, I had no way of knowing if he would even hear of my “feud” with him, but I reasoned that the Internet is a big place, and somebody might draw his attention to it. I decided to create a contest called “The First-Ever Turn David Sedaris into a Supervillain” competition, in which readers were invited to send in ideas for a David Sedaris supervillain. The winning entry was “Frenchy McStink,” a Photoshopped image of David Sedaris’s head grafted onto a Pepe LePew–looking cartoon skunk.

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On the occasion of the release of my first book, My Custom Van (and 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face), I found myself keeping careful tabs on my book’s climb up the Amazon humor charts. To my surprise, the book seemed to be selling pretty well, rising all the way to number three, behind one of David Sedaris’s perpetual bestsellers and I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, by Tucker Max. Considering I hadn’t expected anybody to buy the book, the fact that it now seemed poised to, perhaps, become the number one best-selling humor book in the nation lit a fire under my ass, prompting me to do what I could to juice the numbers.

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The winning entry was “Frenchy McStink,” a Photoshopped image of David Sedaris’s head grafted onto a Pepe LePew–looking cartoon skunk. The description of his supervillain powers read as such: “He draws in his victims with his nonchalant attitude and basket of well-arranged flowers. He then emits compelling and rather stinky excerpts from his latest collection of essays.” Silly, harmless fun, no? I wrote several blog posts excoriating Mr. Sedaris but never received a response. Although he didn’t take my bait, I am told that once he was doing a book reading, and during the question-and-answer session somebody asked about his literary feud with Michael Ian Black.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction--From Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between
by Lee Gutkind
Published 13 Aug 2012

- Justin Hall, a Swarthmore College sophomore, begins an online diary chronicling events in his life; is later dubbed “the founding father of personal blogging” by the New York Times Magazine. 1995 This American Life, now a nationally syndicated program hosted by Ira Glass featuring mainly first-person narratives by the likes of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, first airs on Chicago Public Radio. - Sixty-six-year-old TV repairman and Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat wins a New York Post Valentine’s Day contest for a true story about a young girl who threw apples to him over a concentration camp fence; later he met and married her. - David Sedaris, Naked: Sedaris’s collections of stories about his family and other topics go on to sell more than 7 million copies (and counting) worldwide

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Making stuff up, no matter how minor or unimportant, or not being diligent in certifying the accuracy of the available information, endangers the bond between writer and reader. You don’t have to be objective or balanced in presenting your narrative, but you must be trustworthy and your facts must be right if you’re going to be a credible writer of creative nonfiction. FACT CHECKING SEDARIS Readers love David Sedaris. He’s clever, funny, and self-effacing. His books have sold more than 7 million copies, and when Sedaris performs in person, he knocks the audience dead. But Alex Heard, a veteran magazine editor who once worked with Sedaris, thought that some of Sedaris’s stories seemed far-fetched, that his characters were conveniently eccentric—perfect to write about—and that the dialogue was sometimes too precious and perfect to believe.

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” - Creative Nonfiction launches PodLit, a literary podcast focusing on nonfiction and literary trends. - Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love: Millions of readers buy, read, envy. (And take up yoga.) 2007 Norman Mailer—novelist, New Journalist, cofounder of the Village Voice, Pulitzer Prize winner—dies at 84. - Scandal! Sort of. Maybe. Alex Heard fact-checks four David Sedaris books and concludes in the New Republic that the best-selling humorist often goes too far for his work to count as nonfiction, “even if you allow for an extra-wiggly definition of ‘exaggerate.’” Readers are apparently too busy laughing to feel outraged. - According to Michael Cader of Publishers Lunch, which tracks publishing trends, publishers this year acquire 295 memoirs, and only 227 debut novels.

Calypso
by David Sedaris
Published 28 May 2018

ISBN 978-0-316-39235-8 E3-20180424-NF-DA Contents Cover Title Copyright Dedication Company Man Now We Are Five Little Guy Stepping Out A House Divided The Perfect Fit Leviathan Your English Is So Good Calypso A Modest Proposal The Silent Treatment Untamed The One(s) Who Got Away Sorry Boo-Hooey A Number of Reasons I’ve Been Depressed Lately Why Aren’t You Laughing? I’m Still Standing The Spirit World And While You’re Up There, Check On My Prostate The Comey Memo About the Author Books by David Sedaris Discover More by David Sedaris For Joan Lacey Company Man Though there’s an industry built on telling you otherwise, there are few real joys to middle age. The only perk I can see is that, with luck, you’ll acquire a guest room. Some people get one by default when their kids leave home, and others, like me, eventually trade up and land a bigger house.

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It wasn’t where they belonged, necessarily. It was just where they ended up. About the Author David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever, Naked, Holidays on Ice, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and, most recently, Theft by Finding. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England. davidsedarisbooks.com facebook.com/davidsedaris Books by David Sedaris Theft by Finding Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk When You Are Engulfed in Flames Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Me Talk Pretty One Day Holidays on Ice Naked Barrel Fever Want more David Sedaris?

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Copyright © 2018 by David Sedaris Cover design by Peter Mendelsund Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

Happy-Go-Lucky
by David Sedaris
Published 30 May 2022

Discover Your Next Great Read Get sneak peeks, book recommendations, and news about your favorite authors. Tap here to learn more. About the Author DAVID SEDARIS is the author of twelve previous books, including, most recently, A Carnival of Snackery, The Best of Me, and Calypso. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Jonathan Swift Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor. Also by David Sedaris A Carnival of Snackery The Best of Me Calypso Theft by Finding Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk When You Are Engulfed in Flames Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Me Talk Pretty One Day Holidays on Ice Naked Barrel Fever

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Copyright © 2022 by David Sedaris Cover design by Jamie Keenan Cover art from the Steinmetz collection / Florida Memory Cover copyright © 2022 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com.

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ISBN 9780316392440 E3-20220303-NF-DA-ORI Table of Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Active Shooter Father Time Bruised A Speech to the Graduates Hurricane Season Highfalutin Unbuttoned Themes and Variations To Serbia with Love The Vacuum Pearls Fresh-Caught Haddock Happy-Go-Lucky A Better Place Lady Marmalade Smile, Beautiful Pussytoes Lucky-Go-Happy Discover More About the Author Also by David Sedaris For Ted Woestendiek Ban everything. Purify everything. Moral cleanse everything. Anything that was bad or is bad, destroy it. Especially in the forest, where you live your life as a tree, wielding an axe. —Sigmond C. Monster Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on Their Craft
by Mike Sacks
Published 8 Jul 2009

The best agents also have brilliant vision, and the best managers have sharp negotiating skills. Last, if you are reading this book and just starting out, go along with the enthusiasm of the representative that is interested in working with you — no matter what his or her title. All that matters is that he or she believes in you. David Sedaris David Sedaris describes his suburban upbringing in Raleigh, North Carolina, as something akin to a white-trash gumbo, with a few Greeks thrown in for extra spice. His family includes a father who hoards rotting food, a foulmouthed brother who nicknames himself “the Rooster,” a younger sister who tries to lure their father into an extramarital affair with a next-door neighbor, and a chain-smoking mother who welcomes a former prostitute named Dinah into their home on Christmas to share stories.

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Show with Bob and David) TODD HANSON (The Onion) MARSHALL BRICKMAN (The Tonight Show, Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Muppet Show) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Four: Getting Your Humor Piece Published in The New Yorker MITCH HURWITZ (Arrested Development) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Five: Acquiring an Agent or Manager for Your Script DAVID SEDARIS (Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day) GEORGE MEYER (Army Man, The Simpsons) AL JAFFEE (Mad's Fold-In, “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”) ALLISON SILVERMAN (The Daily Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Colbert Report) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Six: Getting a Job as a Writer for Late-Night Television ROBERT SMIGEL (Saturday Night Live, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, “TV Funhouse”) DAVE BARRY (Dave Barry's Guide to Marriage and/or Sex) DICK CAVETT (The Tonight Show, The Dick Cavett Show) LARRY WILMORE (In Living Color, The Bernie Mac Show, The Daily Show, The Office) JACK HANDEY (Saturday Night Live, The New Yorker) LARRY GELBART (Caesar's Hour, M*A*S*H, Tootsie) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Seven: Getting Your Comic Book or Graphic Novel Published ROZ CHAST (The New Yorker) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Eight: Getting a Book of Humor Published DANIEL HANDLER (A Series of Unfortunate Events) Quick and Painless Advice for the Aspiring Humor Writer, Part Nine: Selling Your Movie Script to a Studio Executive BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN (Stir Crazy, Splash) DANIEL CLOWES (Ghost World, Esquire, New York Times Magazine) Canned Laughter: A History Reconstructed Recommended Reading Foreword by Adam McKay There are a few ways that you, the reader, have come to this book.

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Travel overseas, and you're likely to see a similar crowd. There have been a few attempts to discredit Sedaris — a March 2007 exposé in The New Republic asserted that he fabricated or exaggerated many details in his stories — but he remains as popular as ever. The only person who may not buy into the David-Sedaris-as-comedy-superstar hype is Sedaris himself. The author, who now lives in England and France with his partner Hugh Hamrick had to be talked into quitting his day job as an apartment cleaner in the mid–nineties, apparently unimpressed with his skyrocketing book sales. Even today, he occasionally admits to missing the minimum-wage grunt work.

You've Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All
by Adrian Hon
Published 14 Sep 2022

Ed Zitron, “My Gamer Brain Is Addicted to the Peloton Exercise Bike,” VICE, November 5, 2018, www.vice.com/en/article/vba4dx/my-gamer-brain-is-addicted-to-the-peloton-exercise-bike. 33. u/plymouthvan, “Apple watch should have a ‘Sick’ mode,” r/apple, Reddit, February 29, 2020, www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/fbffqy/apple_watch_should_have_a_sick_mode. 34. “Mobile Operating System Market Share—December 2021,” StatCounter GlobalStats, accessed January 15, 2022, https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide. 35. Sarah Lyall, “David Sedaris, Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go,” New York Times, updated October 25, 2021, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/books/david-sedaris-nyc-quarantine-life-coronavirus.html. 36. “Apple Watch Series 4—How to Start an Activity Competition—Apple,” Apple Australia, YouTube, video, 00:25, October 20, 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=0tgXe5Y2DYM. 37. “Local Legends: A New Way to Compete on Segments,” Strava, accessed November 26, 2021, www.strava.com/local-legends; “Strava’s Year in Sport 2021 Charts Trajectory of Ongoing Sports Boom,” Strava Press, Strava, December 7, 2021, https://blog.strava.com/press/yis2021. 38.

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Unfortunately, Apple’s invocation of video game aesthetics and mechanics stops short of forgiving someone with eight hundred days of perfect rings who has the temerity to catch the flu. Along with streaks and achievements, gamified fitness apps also rely on competition to boost engagement. Sending a notification that a friend pulled ahead in your weekly activity competition is a foolproof method to keep people using your device. David Sedaris, the American humorist, recounts: “I destroy everyone I’m a Fitbit friend of.… Like, I might be walking 130 miles a week, and they’re walking 30 miles a week.”35 Apple’s fitness products all incorporate competition. “How do you compare to everyone’s that’s done this workout?” shouted my trainer Kim enthusiastically during an Apple Fitness+ workout, referring to the Burn Bar showing whether I’d burned more or fewer calories than everyone else.

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.… For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”75 Perhaps gamification can help us do good things out of habit by providing structure and goals and a sense of progress. Even generic gamification could provide the training wheels for learning a new language or practicing the guitar so that we can one day proceed more confidently on our own. But what if the training wheels never come off? David Sedaris, the Fitbit destroyer-of-friends, wrote about what happened when his Fitbit died: I was devastated when I tapped the broadest part of it and the little dots failed to appear. Then I felt a great sense of freedom. It seemed that my life was now my own again. But was it? Walking twenty-five miles, or even running up the stairs and back, suddenly seemed pointless, since, without the steps being counted and registered, what use were they?

Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls
by David Sedaris
Published 22 Apr 2013

He poops a stool, then, though it’s heinous, bends back down and licks his anus. About the Author David Sedaris is the author of the books Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He lives in England. davidsedarisbooks.com facebook.com/davidsedaris Download the David’s Diary app. Books by David Sedaris Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk When You Are Engulfed in Flames Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim Me Talk Pretty One Day Holidays on Ice Naked Barrel Fever Thank you for buying this e-book, published by Hachette Digital.

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Standing By I Break for Traditional Marriage Understanding Understanding Owls #2 to Go Health-Care Freedoms and Why I Want My Country Back Now Hiring Friendly People Rubbish Day In, Day Out Mind the Gap A Cold Case The Happy Place Dog Days About the Author Books by David Sedaris Newsletters Copyright Copyright © 2013 by David Sedaris Cover design and illustration by Emily Burns Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
by Greg McKeown
Published 14 Apr 2014

The cumulative impact of this small change in thinking can be profound. Nonessentialist Essentialist Thinks, “I can do both.” Asks, “How can I do it all?” Asks, “What is the trade-off I want to make?” Asks, “What can I go big on?” In a piece called “Laugh, Kookaburra” published in The New Yorker, David Sedaris gives a humorous account of his experience touring the Australian “bush.”9 While hiking, his friend and guide for the day shares something she has heard in passing at a management class. “Imagine a four-burner stove,” she instructs the members of the party. “One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work.

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Michael Josephson, “Business Ethics Insight: Johnson & Johnson’s Values-Based Ethical Culture: Credo Goes Beyond Compliance,” Business Ethics and Leadership, February 11, 2012, http://josephsoninstitute.org/business/blog/2012/02/business-ethics-insight-johnson-johnsons-values-based-ethical-culture-its-credo-goes-beyond-compliancer-than-compliance-based-rules-culture/. 7. Sowell in a talk he gave at Ohio State University in 1992. 8. Stephanie Smith, “Jim Collins on Creating Enduring Greatness,” Success, n.d., www.success.com/articles/1003-jim-collins-on-creating-enduring-greatness, accessed September 22, 2013. 9. David Sedaris, “Laugh, Kookaburra,” The New Yorker, August 24, 2009, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_sedaris. 5. ESCAPE 1. Frank O’Brien, “Do-Not-Call Mondays.” 2. Scott Doorley and Scott Witthoft, Make Space: How to Set the Stage for Creative Collaboration (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley, 2012), 132. 3.

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America
by Beth Macy
Published 4 Mar 2019

Among the things she loved to do before she fell into a raging, $200-a-day heroin habit were writing poetry, painting, reading, and singing to her dog, a black rescue mutt named Koda. (The two were particularly happy when Tess belted out the words to Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” in the car.) Her favorite author in the world was David Sedaris; she’d run into him once in a local coffee shop after a reading, she told me, and he was so, soooo unbelievably nice. Of Patricia Mehrmann’s four kids, Tess was the quietest, the one who voluntarily walked the dogs with her on the beach. Patricia emailed me a beach picture of the family Labrador, Charlie, and a ten-year-old Tess, all freckles and a toothy smile, with both arms wrapped around the dog.

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There was an outstanding arrest warrant out for her from a fraudulent seventy-eight-dollar credit-card charge earlier in the year. Her son was now fourteen months old, and Tess hadn’t seen him in eight months. She’d asked me to bring her a copy of my latest book, Truevine, which she’d read about in a People magazine at the psych ward. She thanked me for it and said it was OK when I asked to take notes. Her writer hero, David Sedaris, was about to publish a new book, and I promised to try to get her an autographed copy when it came out. Tess told us she was no longer using heroin, that she now favored crack cocaine. “I thought the cocaine would help me get off heroin,” she told us. “And it did, actually…but it’s very mentally addictive.”

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When I told her mom about the limited MAT expansions in the fall of 2017, paid for via state and federal grants, she called the community services board office and was told that only pregnant women were being accepted at the time. Soon after, Tess messaged me at 4 a.m. from someone else’s phone, saying she planned to enter another Nevada rehab and asking if I’d send her more books when she got there. I texted back that I already had the new David Sedaris book ready to send. “Oh, awesome!” she said, thanking me for my “positivity” and support. She didn’t have an address where she could receive the book, but she would let me know when she checked herself into a rehab. Her elderly grandfather had agreed to fund another round of treatment, even though Tess had recently talked him into wiring her $500, allegedly to pay a friend to drive her back to Roanoke.

Comedy Writing Secrets
by Mel Helitzer and Mark Shatz
Published 14 Sep 2005

The story line is not a potpourri of one-gag anecdotes but is confined to one unique theme. The performer makes heavy use of strong critical comments that are strung out for as long as ten minutes (eventually, the comedian arrives at the point). Jokesters like Bill Cosby, Garrison Keillor, Richard Pryor, and David Sedaris don't flip from gag to gag. Instead, they share with the audience a universal experience and irritation. Like actors, they 234 Comedy Writing Secrets carefully rehearse and dramatize their stories. As a result, their material tends to stay away from current events and concentrate on standbys like family, business, and social situations.

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In storytelling, the big benefit is that if the audience doesn't laugh at what was supposed to be a funny line, it doesn't seem to matter unless it's the last line. As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: She gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by "survival of the fittest." —Bill Cosby David Sedaris's wickedly jaundiced and funny observations push storytelling to a new level. With a brilliant deadpan delivery, he takes the audience on a surrealistic journey based on his eccentric life experiences. Part of his success is his unusual material, such as stories about working as an elf at Macy's.

Keep It Real: Everything You Need to Know About Researching and Writing Creative Nonfiction
by Lee Gutkind
Published 1 Jan 2008

James Frey was hung out to dry. The publisher just has to say the author lied to them. I would feel more confident writing for a magazine, because at least you have the magazine’s support behind you as a writer.” Family Members as Characters In his popular memoir Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris analogizes his work as a memoirist to that of a garbageman discarding the family trash: The job stinks. Sedaris writes that his sister Tiffany has become afraid to share any anecdotes from her life for fear that she will end up in his stories, being judged by him. “In this country, once something’s out of your mouth, it’s garbage,” she quips as they ride toward her ramshackle apartment.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot
by Sarah Vowell
Published 26 Aug 2002

Along with the interviewees, these people helped: Todd Bachmann, Kevin Baker, Steven Barclay, John Flansburgh, Nicole Francis, Robin Goldwasser, Nicole Graev, Jack Hitt, Nick Hornby, Matt Klam, Joel Lovell, Greil and Jenny Marcus, Katie Martin, Doug Petrie, Kate Porterfield, David Levinthal, David Rosenthal, David Sedaris, Stephen Sherrill, and my agent, Wendy Weil. Special thanks to Bennett Miller for taking me to Gettysburg, Matt Roberts for taking me to Salem, and Ben Karlin for taking me to the movies. David Rakoff deserves an exclamation point! My love and apologies to my family—Pat, Janie, Amy, Jay, and Owen.

Elliot Allagash: A Novel
by Simon Rich
Published 24 May 2010

The writer Erik Kenward introduced me to the term “garbage animals.” And my father deserves full credit for the “Where’s the fish” story. He told it to me when I was eleven (and insists to this day that it is true!). Thanks to Charles Dickens, P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, Terry Southern, David Sedaris, and the Simpsons. Also: Evan Camfield, Simon M. Sullivan, Jennifer Huwer, Meghan Cassidy, Ben Wiseman, Caleb Beyers, Dustin Lushing, Lorne Michaels, Mike Shoemaker, Steve Higgins, Gregory McKnight, Shari Smiley, Forrest Church, Michael Hertzberg, and the park rangers of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction
by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd
Published 15 Jan 2013

In “Thanks for the Memory,” for instance, he assumes the role of Bob Hope, in a parody of the comedian’s vacuous public utterances, recalling a golf tournament: “The payoff was over half a billion dollars, just for me. It’s one of the largest amounts of money there is.” The humorous essay often turns on self-mockery, and once you are mocking yourself, the reader is less likely to dispute your right to use hyperbole. David Sedaris, the best-known current master of the humorous essay, came to literary prominence with his “Santa Land Diaries,” an essay that describes his service as one of Santa’s elves at Macy’s department store in New York. This piece skewers not only a commercialized Christmas holiday but the overbearing mothers and insufferable children who celebrate it.

How to Weep in Public: Feeble Offerings From One Depressive to Another
by Jacqueline Novak
Published 1 Mar 2016

I asked the members their names, checked them off, and handled their guest passes. I also got to swim on my breaks and go there on days off. (Will I ever be a legitimate member of a club?) The structure was good for me, both time-wise and because I got to have a chair and table. I even did some reading on the job; David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day was my best friend that summer. I had avoided the book for a while because I had no idea it was humor; I thought it was a sincere memoir, albeit one with an offensively insipid title, about someone who longed to one day speak well. But once I started reading, I, like the rest of the world, loved it.

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
by Kathryn Schulz
Published 7 Jun 2010

Two examples, both culled from the 2008 election, will suffice to illustrate the point. On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart presented a pie chart that divided undecided voters into four equally unflattering categories: “attention seekers; racist Democrats; the chronically insecure; and the stupid.” A few weeks later, the humorist David Sedaris wrote what became an instantly famous New Yorker article in which he imagined the following situation transpiring on an airplane. “The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’

…

Nor was it an accident that Kerry’s intellectualism was popularly signaled by his fluency in French—among a certain sector of Americans, that most castrated of languages. It would seem that our desire for certainty in our leadership unites the misogynist strain and the anti-intellectual strain of American politics. the Daily Show. The episode in question, #13127, “The Stupid Vote,” aired on Oct. 7, 2008. “The flight attendant comes down the aisle.” David Sedaris, “Undecided,” the New Yorker, Oct. 27, 2008. “we must be fully committed.” Rollo May, The Courage To Create (W. W. Norton and Co., 1994), 20. The second quotation in this paragraph is from p. 21. In both cases, the italics are his. cognitive dissonance (FN). Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken, and Stanley Schacter, When Prophecy Fails (Torchbooks, 1994).

Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations With Today's Top Comedy Writers
by Mike Sacks
Published 23 Jun 2014

—The Austin Chronicle “Laughter may be universal, but the world of comedy writing is shrouded in mystery. . . . [Sacks] helps lift the veil.” —Vanity Fair Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason “Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason makes you laugh out loud, and at the same time it inspires wonder. . . . Mike Sacks is not just a sensational comic writer, but a sensational writer—period.” —David Sedaris “A brilliant and hilarious writer.” —Comedy Central Insider “A hugely eclectic and highly original collection.” —The Huffington Post “The fun in Your Wildest Dreams is watching Sacks unpack his weirdness, and there’s plenty of weirdness to unpack. . . . [A] breezy, imaginative humor anthology.”

…

Danny Haynes & Kim Woodman, live in the Gold Room) Dan Abramson, Lauren Bans, Yoni Brenner, Michelle Brower, Rocco Castoro, Dick Cavett, Michael Colton, Phil Davidson, Gabe Delahaye, Andrés du Bouchet, Janice Forsyth, Michael Gerber, Courtenay Hameister, Jack Handey, A.J. Jacobs, Al Jaffee, Dan Kennedy, Adam Laukhuf, Dan Lazar, Gabe Liedman, Ross Luippold, Merrill Markoe, Sam Means, Daniel Menaker, Richard Metzger, Christopher Monks, Kliph Nesteroff, Don Novello, Dave Nuttycombe, Dan O’Brien, Tony Perez, Alana Quirk, Jason Reich, Eric Reynolds, Simon Rich, David Sedaris, Streeter Seidell, Andrea Silenzi, Becki Smith and Rob Caldwell at WCSH, John Swartzwelder, John Warner, John Waters (and the staff and clientele at the Wigwam), Jim Windolf, Jon Wurster Andrew Clark and the students and staff of Humber College Transcribers (a huge thanks): Michal Tamar Addady, Michael Bannett, Caitlin Murphy Brust, Monica Giacomucci, Elizabeth Meley, Maggie Phenicie, Sean Michael Simoneau, Darren Springer Hair by Keith at Smile To the upstanding citizens of the planned community of New Granada (“Tomorrow’s City . . .

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions
by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths
Published 4 Apr 2016

Turning the Library Inside Out Deep within the underground Gardner Stacks at the University of California, Berkeley, behind a locked door and a prominent “Staff Only” notice, totally off-limits to patrons, is one of the jewels of the UC library system. Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Elizabeth Bishop, and J. D. Salinger; Anaïs Nin, Susan Sontag, Junot Díaz, and Michael Chabon; Annie Proulx, Mark Strand, and Philip K. Dick; William Carlos Williams, Chuck Palahniuk, and Toni Morrison; Denis Johnson, Juliana Spahr, Jorie Graham, and David Sedaris; Sylvia Plath, David Mamet, David Foster Wallace, and Neil Gaiman … It isn’t the library’s rare book collection; it’s its cache. As we have already discussed, libraries are a natural example of a memory hierarchy when used in concert with our own desk space. In fact, libraries in themselves, with their various sections and storage facilities, are a great example of a memory hierarchy with multiple levels.

…

Dick; the collected poetry and prose of William Carlos Williams; Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk; Sula by Toni Morrison; Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson; The Connection of Everyone with Lungs by Juliana Spahr; The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham; Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris; Ariel by Sylvia Plath and Oleanna by David Mamet; D. T. Max’s biography of David Foster Wallace; Like Something Flying Backwards, Translations of the Gospel Back into Tongues, and Deepstep Come Shining by C. D. Wright; the prose of T. S. Eliot; Eureka by Edgar Allan Poe; Billy Budd, Sailor and a collection of short works in poetry and prose by Herman Melville; The Aspern Papers, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Turn of the Screw by Henry James; Harold Bloom on Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, and “Bartleby the Scrivener”; the plays of Eugene O’Neill; Stardust by Neil Gaiman; Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie; No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy; and more.

My Start-Up Life: What A
by Ben Casnocha and Marc Benioff
Published 7 May 2007

Coetze Indecision, by Benjamin Kunkel The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd The Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe Saturday, by Ian McEwan Random On Paradise Drive, by David Brooks How to Be Alone, by Jonathan Franzen A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris Clinton & Me, by Mark Katz What Does It Mean to Be Well Educated? by Alfie Kohn Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, by David Foster Wallace 181 Acknowledgments I am lucky on many levels, and it’s most evident if I think about the people who have entered my life.

The Wordy Shipmates
by Sarah Vowell
Published 30 Sep 2008

Abrams; Brad Bird; Eric Bogosian; Michael Comeau and Jennifer Fauxsmith at the Massachusetts Archives; Patrick Daughters; Jeremy Dibbell and Elaine Grublin at the Massachusetts Historical Society; Shelley Dick; Dave Eggers; Michael and Jamie Giacchino; Eric Gilliland; Jake Gyllenhaal; Daniel Handler; John Hodgman; Spike Jonze; Ben Karlin; Catherine Keener; Nick Laird; Lisa Leingang; Greil and Jenny Marcus; Tom McCarthy; Clyde, Dermot, Ellen, Kieran, and Michael Mulroney for their hospitality on Cape Cod; Jim Nelson; John Oliver; John Petrizzo; Christopher Quinn; David Rakoff; David Rosenthal; Rodney Rothman; David Sedaris; John-Mario Sevilla; Jonathan Marc Sherman; Zadie Smith; the Family Sontheimer; Pat and Janie Vowell for parenting; Gina Way; Wendy Weil; and Stu Zicherman. This book is dedicated to Scott Seeley, Ted Thompson, and Joan Kim, the founding staff of 826NYC in Brooklyn. They share a reverence for words and the ideal of community with the Massachusetts Bay Colony (but not the banishing or the burning people alive).

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
by Scaachi Koul
Published 7 Mar 2017

This is boring, like offering the same selection of toothpaste-flavoured ice cream for a century and then wondering why your business is failing. My version of media is one that looks like other people, because I remember being a little girl and wishing I read books or magazine articles or saw movies about people who even remotely looked like me. I became a writer because I read a David Sedaris book at thirteen; every word he wrote crackled in my brain, and he was a guy, sure, a white guy, but I knew he was different in a way that I felt different. Later that year, I read another book by an Indian writer about a first-generation Indian girl trying to date as a teenager, the plot alone blossoming in my heart when I read it.

Maeve in America: Essays by a Girl From Somewhere Else
by Maeve Higgins
Published 6 Aug 2018

PRAISE FOR Maeve in America “If Tina Fey and David Sedaris had a daughter, she would be Maeve Higgins. (And while I’m building the fantasy family of comedy, let’s put Nora Ephron somewhere on the family tree.) Higgins’s essays cover subjects ranging from what kind of shelter dog she would be to emigrating from Ireland, but a single thread weaves through each one: that elusive feeling of laughing around a big lump in your throat.” —Glamour “Wickedly funny . . . with incisive humor and deep humility . . . Higgins has the rare gift of being able to meaningfully engage with politics and social ills while remaining legitimately funny.”

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"
by Lena Dunham
Published 28 Sep 2014

Ford, Paul Simms, Charlie McDowell and the Roon, Murray Miller, Sarah Heyward, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Judd Apatow, B. J. Novak, the New Yorker magazine, Glamour magazine, Rookie magazine, HBO, Mindy Kaling, Alicia Van Couvering, Matt Wolf and Carl Williamson, Teddy Blanks, Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz, Taylor and all her songs, Polly Stenham, Larry Salz, Kassie Evashevski, Richard Shepard, David Sedaris, Zadie Smith, Tom Levine, Maria Santos, Ariel Levy, Kaela Myers, Maria Braeckel, Tom Perry, Theresa Zoro, Leigh Marchant, Erika Seyfried, and Lamby. LENA DUNHAM is the creator of the critically acclaimed HBO series Girls, for which she also serves as executive producer, writer, and director.

Assassination Vacation
by Sarah Vowell
Published 28 Mar 2005

As well as: Kevin Baker, Alex Blumberg, Eric Bogosian, Shelley Dick, Daniel Ferguson, John Flansburgh, Barrett Golding, Jonathan Goldstein, Robin Goldwasser, Jack Hitt, John Hodgman, Nick Hornby, Ben Karlin, Jon Langford, Lisa Leingang, Ben Lloyd, John Ma, Jim Nelson, Conan O’Brien, Kate Porterfield, David Sedaris, John-Mario Sevilla, Jeff Singer, Julie Snyder, the Family Sontheimer, Wendy Weil, and Ren Weschler. A welcome distraction from assassination conspiracies were these conspiracies I’m thrilled to be part of: This American Life, McSweeney’s, Pixar, Eating It, Late Night, the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, and 826NYC.

To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction
by Phillip Lopate
Published 12 Feb 2013

Fisher: The Gastronomical Me, The Art of Eating Osamu Dazai: Self Portraits Natalia Ginzburg: The Little Virtues, A Place to Live Roland Barthes: Mythologies, Barthes on Barthes Hubert Butler: Independent Spirit Joseph Brodsky: Less Than One Guy Davenport: The Geography of the Imagination, The Hunter Gracchus Gore Vidal: United States: Essays 1952–1992 Some Contemporary Essayists (Personal, Familiar, and Humorist) Joan Didion: Slouching toward Bethlehem, The White Album Edward Hoagland: Heart’s Desire, Sex and the River Styx Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek, Teaching a Stone to Talk Joseph Epstein: The Middle of My Tether Adrienne Rich: On Lies, Secrets, and Silence Vivian Gornick: Approaching Eye Level, The Situation and the Story William Gass: On Being Blue Phillip Lopate: Getting Personal, Notes on Sontag Nancy Mairs: Plaintext, Waist-High in the World Scott Russell Sanders: The Paradise of Bombs Gerald Early: Tuxedo Junction Daniel Harris: The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture Anne Fadiman: Ex Libris David Sedaris: Naked Sara Suleri: Meatless Days Lynn Freed: Reading, Writing, and Leaving Home Jonathan Lethem: The Disappointment Artist John D’Agata: Halls of Fame, The Lost Origins of the Essay Emily Fox Gordon: Book of Days Lia Purpura: Rough Likeness Eula Biss: Notes from No Man’s Land Siri Hustvedt: Living, Thinking, Looking Nature, Science, Medicine, and the Environment Richard Jeffries: The Life of the Fields J.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
by Amanda Montell
Published 27 May 2019

Have you ever analyzed the speech of British soccer player David Beckham? Very manly guy, surprisingly dainty voice. *Actually, pitch is not really a variable in the gay voice equation. As long as you speak with nasality, sibilant s’s, and upspeak, you can “sound gay” whether you have a voice as high as that of the writer David Sedaris (who often complains of being mistaken for a woman on the phone) or as deep as that of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn (who, despite his rich bass, told David Thorpe that the first time he heard his voice on TV, he was “appalled”). *You might have heard people from small towns, or people from older generations, claim that “no one sounded gay” where they grew up.

Yes Please
by Amy Poehler

A few weeks before the Emmys I was having dinner with Martha Plimpton, Andy Richter, and his wife, writer Sarah Thyre. Andy and Sarah were some of the first people I met and hung out with when I came to New York in the mid-1990s. They were already married then and had a duplex apartment where they threw great parties that brilliant writers like David Sedaris and David Rakoff attended. They were real adults at a time when I was still a struggling kid and were always generous and kind to me. At dinner, we all discussed a fun bit that could keep my mind off the pudding again. I was reminiscing about the great old bits done by Harvey Korman and Tim Conway.

The Broken Ladder
by Keith Payne
Published 8 May 2017

They are supplied by the images of conservatives and liberals rendered in fine detail in our heads. We can envision the conservatives packing the family off to church in the pickup truck to the tune of country music. We can imagine the liberals returning from the farmers’ market, careful not to blemish their heirloom tomatoes as they drive home in the Prius, listening to a podcast of David Sedaris. You can even distinguish their ideologies in their consumption patterns. Liberals drive Land Rovers and Lexuses, while conservatives prefer Pontiacs and Buicks. Liberals drink Sam Adams Light, while conservatives drink Bud. Liberals eat kale salads at Panera, while conservatives eat chicken-fried steaks at Cracker Barrel.

The Hilarious World of Depression
by John Moe
Published 4 May 2020

KUOW was often the number one station in Seattle, a city teeming with brainy, thoughtful people who love their public radio. I was producing and hosting a weekly business and technology show; I went out and toured businesses like potato chip factories and prosthetic limb companies, and I was trusted to make the kind of show I wanted. I pitched in here and there for the arts show, which meant that people like David Sedaris would come in to be interviewed by me or the Indigo Girls would come in and perform for a broadcast audience of millions but a live audience of precisely just me. I had the greatest job anyone I knew could imagine. My boss believed in me; audiences liked me; co-workers thought highly of my work and most of them enjoyed my company.

Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed With Early Achievement
by Rich Karlgaard
Published 15 Apr 2019

Acclaimed artist Marina Abramovic didn’t find her way in the art world until her thirties, achieved national recognition at fifty-four with her performance piece “Seven Easy Pieces,” and became famous at fifty-nine with a Museum of Modern Art retrospective titled The Artist Is Present. The list of late-blooming writers is as diverse as it is illustrious. Chuck Palahniuk published his first novel, Fight Club, at thirty-four; David Sedaris, the humorist, published his first collection of essays at thirty-eight; Toni Morrison published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, at thirty-nine and won the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved at fifty-six; Janet Evanovich launched her bestselling Stephanie Plum series of crime novels at forty-four; and Frank McCourt published his Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes, at sixty-three.

Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
by Adam L. Alter
Published 15 Feb 2017

Schreiber has suffered from addictive exercise tendencies, and vows not to use wearable tech when she works out. I use a watch that tracks my progress when I run outdoors, and I hate to stop until I hit a predetermined number of whole miles. Occasionally the watch won’t work, and those runs, untethered to numbers, are always my favorite. In a New Yorker piece, the humorist David Sedaris described how owning a Fitbit changed his life. During the first few weeks that I had it, I’d return to my hotel at the end of the day, and when I discovered that I’d taken a total of, say, twelve thousand steps, I’d go out for another three thousand. “But why?” [my husband] Hugh asked when I told him about it.

The new village green: living light, living local, living large
by Stephen Morris
Published 1 Sep 2007

Before I started the business, when I had free time, I spent most of it outdoors, kayaking Casco Bay, hiking in the White Mountains, and cross-country skiing the Maine woods. Now I just think about all that while I clean laundry. I do take time to read, and am currently enjoying Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. David Sedaris remains one of my all-time favorite writers. What’s your favorite meal? Lobster cream sauce on homemade ravioli with a mesclun salad from my parents’ organic farm, and my wife’s chocolate cream for dessert. Which stereotype about environmentalists most fits you? I loathe American-style consumerism.

The Power of Geography: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
by Tim Marshall
Published 14 Oct 2021

Under Roman rule the city states were given substantial autonomy, Athenian institutions significantly influenced Roman thought, and being part of the Roman Empire helped the Greek language to spread throughout the Mediterranean, ensuring that Greek culture was handed down the generations. But as for power – those days were over, and it became a backwater as greater states fought their way into the pages of history. The American humorist David Sedaris has quipped that Greeks ‘invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day’. It’s a little harsh given that over the next 2,000 years the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, British and Russians worked tirelessly to prevent Greece from taking charge of its own destiny and getting back in the geopolitical game.

Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road
by Matthew B. Crawford
Published 8 Jun 2020

In Copenhagen, a motorist who has been cut off by another will typically shout something that translates as “Why don’t you run around in my ass?” In Canada, according to Phillips, it is common to hear “You whore!” He reports once driving in Ontario behind someone stuck in traffic who yelled, “Why don’t you pay my mortgage?” In the Netherlands, according to David Sedaris, popular road rage expressions include “cholera sufferer” and “cancer slut.” In Austria, drivers sometimes address one another thus: “Why don’t you find a spot on my ass that you would like to lick and lick it?” In Honolulu, Phillips once heard a local shout, “Sit on your gearshift till Easter!”

Lonely Planet Amsterdam
by Lonely Planet

It hosts a great programme of quality music and theatre; its Christmas circus is a seasonal highlight. one-hour Saturday-morning tours (at 11am) are in English and Dutch. The first structure was of wood, but it was eventually rebuilt in concrete due to fire hazards (early performances for 2000 spectators were lit by gas lamps). Comic essayist David Sedaris, the Pet Shop Boys and the National Theatre London's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time have all appeared on stage here in recent years. StadsschouwburgTHEATRE ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ; %020-624 23 11; www.stadsschouwburgamsterdam.nl; Leidseplein 26; hbox office noon-6pm Mon-Sat; j1/2/5/7/10 Leidseplein) When this theatre with the grand balcony arcade was completed in 1894, public criticism of the design was so fierce that the exterior decorations were never completed; architect Jan Springer was so upset, he retired.

San Francisco
by Lonely Planet

City Arts & Lectures Lectures Offline map Google map ( box office 415-392-4400; www.cityarts.net; Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave; tickets from $17; & Civic Center) The city’s foremost lecture series hosts an all-star lineup of today’s most celebrated artists, writers and intellectuals, from Joan Didion to ­David Sedaris and Madeline Albright to Tina Fey. Most take place at the Herbst Theater, and are broadcast on local public-radio station KQED-FM (88.5); check the website for schedules. Warfield Live Music Offline map Google map ( 800-745-3000; www.thewarfieldtheatre.com; 982 Market St; admission varies; box office 10am-4pm Sun & 90min before curtain on show nights; & Powell St) Famous names play this former vaudeville theater, including the Beastie Boys and PJ Harvey; when Furthur (formerly the Grateful Dead) play, the balcony fills with pot smoke.

San Francisco
by Lonely Planet

City Arts & Lectures Lectures Offline map Google map ( box office 415-392-4400; www.cityarts.net; Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave; tickets from $17; & Civic Center) The city’s foremost lecture series hosts an all-star lineup of today’s most celebrated artists, writers and intellectuals, from Joan Didion to ­David Sedaris and Madeline Albright to Tina Fey. Most take place at the Herbst Theater, and are broadcast on local public-radio station KQED-FM (88.5); check the website for schedules. Warfield Live Music Offline map Google map ( 800-745-3000; www.thewarfieldtheatre.com; 982 Market St; admission varies; box office 10am-4pm Sun & 90min before curtain on show nights; & Powell St) Famous names play this former vaudeville theater, including the Beastie Boys and PJ Harvey; when Furthur (formerly the Grateful Dead) play, the balcony fills with pot smoke.

The Rough Guide to New York City
by Martin Dunford
Published 2 Jan 2009

On other occasions there’s an intriguing program centered on great Poetry slams and readings website for up-to-date schedules. The building also houses the Kraine Theater (p.362). Symphony Space 2537 Broadway, at 95th St T212/864-5400, Wwww.symphonyspace.org. The highly acclaimed Selected Shorts series, in which actors read the short fiction of a variety of authors (everyone from James Joyce to David Sedaris), usually packs the Symphony Space theater; Bloomsday on Broadway, a one-day celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is in its 27th year. | Literary events and readings magazine writing read by a group of journalists. Check the calendar on the site for schedules. KGB 85 E 4th St T212/505-3360, Wwww .kgbbar.com.

The Rough Guide to New York City
by Rough Guides
Published 21 May 2018

New York’s iconic secondhand bookshop offers readings, talks and literary panels most days of the week. Mon–Sat 9.30am–10.30pm, Sun 11am–10.30pm. Symphony Space 2537 Broadway, at 95th St 212 864 5400, symphonyspace.org; subway #1, #2, #3 to 96th St. The highly acclaimed Selected Shorts series, in which actors read the short fiction of a variety of authors (everyone from James Joyce to David Sedaris), usually packs the Symphony Space theatre (Wed 7.30pm). Top spots for Poetry Poetry and story slamming is a literary version of freestyle rapping, in which performers take turns presenting stories and poems (often mostly or entirely improvised) on stage. At their best, slams can be thrilling, raw and very funny, not to mention competitive – many feature a judges’ panel.

Lonely Planet France
by Lonely Planet Publications
Published 31 Mar 2013

The person who invites pays, although close friends often go Dutch. » Fondle fruit, veg, flowers or clothing in shops and you’ll be greeted with a killer glare from the shop assistant. » Take flowers (not chrysanthemums, which are only for cemeteries) or Champagne when invited to someone’s home. » Never, ever, discuss money over dinner. Best in Print The Death of French Culture (Donald Morrison) Thought-provoking look at France’s past and present. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris) Caustic take on moving to France and learning the lingo. Paris in Color (Nichole Robertson) No photographic title better captures the extraordinary colours and hues of the French capital. Stuff Parisians Like (Olivier Magny) Witty vignettes by a Parisian sommelier. Best Surfs Paris by Mouth (http://parisbymouth.com) Resource for capital dining and drinking.

1,000 Places to See in the United States and Canada Before You Die, Updated Ed.
by Patricia Schultz
Published 13 May 2007

The growing popularity of Spoleto inspired the concurrent Piccolo Spoleto, which captures the irreverent spirit of the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival and brings hundreds of additional musical and theatrical performances (mostly free or inexpensive), many staged by local talent. The main Spoleto Festival, however, is hardly stuffy. It draws youthful, cutting-edge performers and cultivates an air of vitality and creativity. Past performers include dancers Mikhail Baryshnikov, Savion Glover, humorist David Sedaris, violinist Joshua Bell, and composer Philip Glass. The excitement peaks with the Festival Finale symphonic concert under a panoply of stars and brilliant fireworks at the 18th-century riverside Middleton Place plantation (see p. 382), 15 miles northeast of Charleston. It’s a long-standing custom for concertgoers to bring lavish preconcert picnic dinners (local celebrity judges wander from blanket to blanket awarding prizes), and many arrive early to enjoy America’s first landscaped gardens.