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David Sedaris

Born: 1956 in Binghamton, New York
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Sedaris moved to Chicago in 1983. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute in 1987. He also taught writing at School of the Art Institute of Chicago for a short time.

Biography: David Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor. Sedaris was raised in a suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina. In 1983, he moved to Chicago and graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1987. While working a string of odd jobs across Raleigh, Chicago and New York City, Sedaris was discovered reading his diary in a Chicago club by radio host Ira Glass, who asked Sedaris to appear on his weekly local program ''The Wild Room''. His success there led to a monthly segment for National Public Radio based on entries in his diary. His first collection of short stories, entitled ''Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays'', was published in 1994 and became a national best-seller. Sedaris has also been published in print and online by ''Esquire Magazine'', ''Slate'', the ''New York Times'', and ''The New Yorker''. He has written six plays, five with his sister Amy Sedaris (some under the pen name of ''The Talent Family''). In 2005 Sedaris edited ''Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules'', an anthology of stories from his favorite authors. ''Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim'' was nominated for a Grammy Award in for best spoken-word album, and ''David Sedaris: Live at Carnegie Hall'' received a Grammy nomination for best comedy album. Sedaris currently resides in England.


Awards:
  • '''''Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim'''''
  • -- Lambda Literary Award for Humor, 2005 '''''Me Talk Pretty One Day'''''
  • -- Lambda Literary Award for Humor, 2001
  • -- James Thurber Prize for American Humor, 2001

Primary Literary Genre(s): Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidsedaris
Website: https://www.davidsedarisbooks.com/
Website: https://www.barclayagency.com/speakers/david-sedaris/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sedaris
on WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=david+sedaris


Selected Titles

Barrel Fever /
ISBN: 0349119767 OCLC: 68261489

Abacus, London : 2006.

Calypso /
ISBN: 0316392421 OCLC: 1056779200

Dress your family in corduroy and denim
ISBN: 9781600246166 OCLC: 702945266

Hachette Audio, North Kingstown : 2011.

No one renders the pathos, chaos, and impossible variety of daily encounters like David Sedaris. On every subject, he is bruisingly painful and tenderly affectionate. Sedaris is unique in American writing, and these readings of his own work are highly skilled performances. No one renders the pathos, chaos, and impossible variety of daily encounters like David Sedaris. On every subject, he is bruisingly painful and tenderly affectionate ...

Holidays on ice
ISBN: 9780316078917 OCLC: 250742917

A best-selling classic features six additional works on the joys and embarrassments of favorite holidays, in a volume that includes tales of tardy trick-or-treaters, the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to another culture, and a barnyard Secret Santa scheme gone awry.

Let's explore diabetes with owls /
ISBN: 0316154695 OCLC: 828418043

This collection of essays by the humorist author traces his offbeat world travel experiences. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.

Me talk pretty one day /
ISBN: 0613674650 OCLC: 973596822

Little, Brown, Boston : 2001.

Me Talk Pretty One Day contains far more than just the funniest collection of autobiographical essays - it quite well registers as a manifesto about language itself. Wherever there's a straight line, you can be sure that Sedaris lurks beneath the text, making it jagged with laughter; and just where the fault lines fall, he sits mischievously perched at the epicenter of it all.

Naked /
ISBN: 0753812487 OCLC: 51252170

Phoenix, London : 2001.

Santaland diaries
ISBN: 9780349119755 OCLC: 68261485

A collection of six personal essays about Christmas that are surprising, disarming and funny, from the No. 1 bestselling writer, Time named America's Favorite Humorist.

Squirrel seeks chipmunk :
ISBN: 0316038407 OCLC: 707964891

Back Bay Books, New York : ©2011.

"Anthropomorphized creatures that seem domesticated, but this book is inspired and a riproaring hoot"--[4] Cover.

The ultimate David Sedaris box set.
ISBN: 9781594836343 OCLC: 77499672

A selection of Sedaris' hilarious audio programs.

Theft by finding :
ISBN: 0316154725 OCLC: 960279299

David Sedaris has kept a diary for forty years, recording everything that has captured his attention -- overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences. Now Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Theft by Finding, the first of two volumes, is an account of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet. Most diaries -- even the diaries of great writers -- are impossibly dull, because they are generally about the authors' emotions, or their dreams, or their interior life. Sedaris's diaries are unique because they face outward. He doesn't tell us his feelings about the world; he shows us the world instead, and in so doing he shows us something deeper about himself. Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humor can't fully disguise, Theft by Finding is a potent reminder that there's no such thing as a boring day. When you're perceptive and curious, adventure waits around every corner.

When you are engulfed in flames /
ISBN: 0316154687 OCLC: 183392234

Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds to the awkwardness of having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a sleeping fellow passenger on a plane, David Sedaris uses life's most bizarre moments to reach new heights in understanding love and fear, family and strangers. Culminating in a brilliantly funny account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection will be avidly anticipated.--From publisher description.

 

 

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