David Sedaris Popular Books

David Sedaris Biography & Facts

David Raymond Sedaris (; born December 26, 1956) is an American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "Santaland Diaries". He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. His next book, Naked (1997), became his first of a series of New York Times Bestsellers, and his 2000 collection Me Talk Pretty One Day won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Much of Sedaris's humor is ostensibly autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage, homosexuality, jobs, education, drug use, and obsessive behaviors, as well as his life in France, London, New York, and the South Downs in England. He is the brother and writing collaborator of actress Amy Sedaris. In 2019, Sedaris was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Early life and education Sedaris was born in Johnson City, New York, to Sharon Elizabeth (née Leonard) and Louis Harry "Lou" Sedaris (1923–2021), an IBM engineer. His mother was Anglo-American. His father was born in the U.S. to immigrants from Apidea in Greece. His mother was Protestant, and his father was Greek Orthodox, which was the faith in which David was raised.The Sedaris family moved when David was young, and he grew up in a suburban area of Raleigh, the second oldest child of six. His siblings, from oldest to youngest, are Lisa, Gretchen, Amy, Tiffany, and Paul ("the Rooster"). Tiffany died by suicide in 2013, a subject David discusses in the essay "Now We Are Five", which was published in The New Yorker and included in his 2018 essay collection Calypso.After graduating from Jesse O. Sanderson High School in Raleigh, Sedaris briefly attended Western Carolina University before transferring to, and dropping out of, Kent State University in 1977. In his teens and twenties, David dabbled in visual and performance art. He describes his lack of success in several of his essays. He moved to Chicago in 1983, and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1987. He did not attend Princeton University, although he spoke fondly of doing so in "What I Learned", a comic baccalaureate address delivered at Princeton in June 2006. Career While working odd jobs in Raleigh, Chicago, and New York City, Sedaris was discovered in a Chicago club by radio host Ira Glass. Sedaris was reading a diary he had kept since 1977. Impressed with his work, Glass asked him to appear on his weekly local program, The Wild Room. Referring to the opportunity, Sedaris said, "I owe everything to Ira... My life just changed completely, like someone waved a magic wand." Sedaris's success on The Wild Room led to his National Public Radio debut on December 23, 1992, when he read a radio essay on Morning Edition titled "Santaland Diaries," which described his purported experiences as an elf at Macy's department store during Christmas in New York. "Santaland Diaries" was a success with listeners and made Sedaris what The New York Times called "a minor phenomenon." He began recording a monthly segment for NPR, which was based on his diary entries and was edited and produced by Glass, and he also signed a two book deal with Little, Brown and Company. In 1993, Sedaris told The New York Times he was publishing his first book, a collection of stories and essays, and he had 70 pages written of his second book, a novel "about a man who keeps a diary and whom Mr. Sedaris described as 'not me, but a lot like me'." Collections and mainstream success In 1994, Sedaris published Barrel Fever, a collection of stories and essays. He became a frequent contributor when Ira Glass began a weekly hour-long PRI/Chicago Public Radio show, This American Life, in 1995. Sedaris began writing essays for Esquire and The New Yorker. In 1997, he published another collection of essays, Naked, which won the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Non-Fiction from Publishing Triangle in 1998.Naked and his subsequent four essay collections, Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008), became New York Times Best Sellers.Me Talk Pretty One Day was written mostly in France, over seven months, and it was published in 2000 to "practically unanimous rave reviews." For that book, Sedaris won the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor.In April 2001, Variety reported Sedaris had sold the Me Talk Pretty One Day film rights to director Wayne Wang, who was adapting four stories from the book for Columbia Pictures. Wang had completed the script and begun casting when Sedaris asked to "get out of it," after he and his sister worried how their family might be portrayed. He wrote about the conversation and its aftermath in the essay "Repeat After Me." Sedaris recounted that Wang was "a real prince... I didn't want him to be mad at me, but he was so grown up about it. I never saw how it could be turned into a movie anyway."In 2004, Sedaris published Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which reached number 1 on The New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List in June of that year. The audiobook of Dress Your Family, read by Sedaris, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. The same year, Sedaris was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for his recording Live at Carnegie Hall. In March 2006, Ira Glass said that Sedaris's next book would be a collection of animal fables; during that year, Sedaris included several animal fables in his US book tour, and three of his fables were broadcast on This American Life.In September 2007, a new Sedaris collection was announced for publication the following year. The collection's working title was All the Beauty You Will Ever Need, but Sedaris retitled it Indefinite Leave to Remain and finally settled on the title When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Although at least one news source assumed the book would be fables, Sedaris said in October 2007 that the collection might include a "surprisingly brief story about [his] decision to quit smoking," along with other stories about various topics, including chimpanzees at a typing school, and people visiting [him] in France. The book was described as his darkest, as it dealt with themes of death and dying.In December 2008, Sedaris received an honorary doctorate from Binghamton University.In April 2010, BBC Radio 4 aired Meet David Sedaris, a four-part series of essays, which Sedaris read before a live audience. A second series of six programs began airing on BBC Radio 4 Extra in June 2011, with a third series beginning in September 2012. In July 2017, the sixth series was aired on BBC Radio 4 Extra. In 2010, he released a collection of stories, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. Sedaris released a collection of essays, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, in 2013 and, in 2.... Discover the David Sedaris popular books. Find the top 100 most popular David Sedaris books.

Best Seller David Sedaris Books of 2024

  • It Gets Worse synopsis, comments

    It Gets Worse

    Shane Dawson

    THE INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER New York Times bestselling author, director, actor, and YouTube superstar Shane Dawson returns with another highly entertaining and uproari...

  • Light Shining in the Forest synopsis, comments

    Light Shining in the Forest

    Paul Torday

    'An unsettling, haunting story...memorable, atmospheric and tense' THE LADY'Wellwritten, wellcrafted and constantly gripping' DAILY MAIL'A disquieting and atmospheric psychological...

  • Mother Noise synopsis, comments

    Mother Noise

    Cindy House

    A poignant, “raw[,] and tender” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir told in essays and graphic shorts about what life looks like twenty years after recovery from addictionand h...

  • The Major Works synopsis, comments

    The Major Works

    C. Patrides & Thomas Brown

    Sir Thomas Browne (160582) was a writer of breathtaking range and learning, whose works demonstrate a warm and humorous view of human nature. Religio Medici is a fascinating, witty...

  • Thirty Thousand Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga synopsis, comments

    Thirty Thousand Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga

    Todd Alexander

    Once I was the poster boy for corporate success, but now I’m crashing through the bush in a storm in search of a missing pig. How the hell did we end up here?  Todd and Jeff h...

  • Impossible Things Before Breakfast synopsis, comments

    Impossible Things Before Breakfast

    Rebecca Front

    'Hilarious' The Times'I was completely captivated' David SedarisPeople are odd. Even the most predictable of us sometimes defy expectations. Add to that the tricks that life plays ...

  • Intimacy Idiot synopsis, comments

    Intimacy Idiot

    Isaac Oliver

    From an awardwinning playwright “who splits the difference between David Rakoff and Larry David” (New York magazine)a “compulsively readable debut” (Time Out New York) of bighearte...

  • The Castle in the Pyrenees synopsis, comments

    The Castle in the Pyrenees

    Jostein Gaarder

    Two former lovers are brought back together ... but can they really trust their pasts? The new novel from the bestselling author of SOPHIE'S WORLD.Through five intense years in the...

  • Eileen synopsis, comments

    Eileen

    Ottessa Moshfegh

    Now a major motion picture, starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzieShortlisted for the Man Booker Prize“Eileen is a remarkable piece of writing, always dark and surprisin...

  • The 50 Funniest American Writers synopsis, comments

    The 50 Funniest American Writers

    Andy Borowitz

    New York Times BestsellerThe creator of The New Yorker’s long running satirical column, and “one of the funniest people in America,” pays tribute to comedic geniuses both past and ...

  • Hyperbole and a Half synopsis, comments

    Hyperbole and a Half

    Allie Brosh

    #1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex ...

  • Profiles in Ignorance synopsis, comments

    Profiles in Ignorance

    Andy Borowitz

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER Andy Borowitz, “one of the funniest people in America” (CBS Sunday Morning), brilliantly “chron...

  • Truth in Advertising synopsis, comments

    Truth in Advertising

    John Kenney

    “F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. I have no idea what that means but I believe that in quoting him I appear far more intelligent than I am....

  • The World According to Anna synopsis, comments

    The World According to Anna

    Jostein Gaarder & Donald Bartlett

    When fifteenyearold Anna begins receiving messages from another time, her parents take her to the doctor. But he can find nothing wrong; in fact he believes there may be some truth...

  • Memoir synopsis, comments

    Memoir

    Ben Yagoda

    From a critically acclaimed cultural and literary critic, a definitive history and analysis of the memoir.From Saint Augustine?s Confessions to Augusten Burroughs?s Running with Sc...

  • Love, Clancy synopsis, comments

    Love, Clancy

    Richard Glover

    Heartfelt and hilarious, this is a book for anyone who has tried to imagine what their dog was thinking.Human beings often write about their dogs, but the dogs don't usually get a ...

  • The Orange Girl synopsis, comments

    The Orange Girl

    Jostein Gaarder

    From the author of SOPHIE'S WORLD, a modern fairy tale with a philosophical twist.'It should be read by all' VOGUE'My father died eleven years ago. I was only four then. I never th...

  • The Cockroach and I synopsis, comments

    The Cockroach and I

    Saranya Subramanian

    RUNNERUP OF THE 2020 BODLEY HEAD / FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZE'It's an exhausting, futile battle, really. Every night, the same smug cockroach squeezes herself out of my bathroom d...

  • On Animals synopsis, comments

    On Animals

    Susan Orlean

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER“Magnificent.” The New York Times “Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny.” San Francisco Chronicle “Spectacular.” Star Tribune (Minneapolis) “Full of asto...

  • The Traveling Feast synopsis, comments

    The Traveling Feast

    Rick Bass

    Acclaimed author Rick Bass decided to thank all of his writing heroes in person, one meal at a time, in this "rich smorgasbord of a memoir . . . a soulnourishing, roadburning act o...

  • Lives of the Artists synopsis, comments

    Lives of the Artists

    Giorgio Vasari & George Bull

    Beginning with Cimabue and Giotto in the thirteenth century, Vasari traces the development of Italian art across three centuries to the golden epoch of Leonardo and Michelangelo. G...

  • The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall synopsis, comments

    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall

    Paul Torday

    Hartlepool Hall has been in Ed's family for generations but is that about to change, and who is the mysterious Lady Alice?'A deliciously dark comedy about class, snobbery and a va...

  • Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules synopsis, comments

    Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

    David Sedaris

    A musthave for the fans of the New York Times bestselling author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, a collection of his favorite short fiction from Flannery O'Connor to Tobi...

  • The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden synopsis, comments

    The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden

    Phyllis Granoff

    The stories collected in this volume reflect the rich tradition of medieval Jain storytelling between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, from simple folk tales and lives of famou...

  • The Uncanny synopsis, comments

    The Uncanny

    Sigmund Freud & David McLintock

    An extraordinary collection of thematically linked essays, including THE UNCANNY, SCREEN MEMORIES and FAMILY ROMANCES.Leonardo da Vinci fascinated Freud primarily because he was ke...

  • Jaguars and Electric Eels synopsis, comments

    Jaguars and Electric Eels

    Alexander von Humboldt

    A great, innovative and restless thinker, the young Humboldt (17691859) went on his epochal journey to the New World during a time of revolutionary ferment across Europe. This part...

  • On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia synopsis, comments

    On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia

    Sigmund Freud

    These works were written against a background of war and racism. Freud sought the sources of conflict in the deepest memories of humankind, finding clear continuities between our '...

  • A River Passes By Here synopsis, comments

    A River Passes By Here

    Caroline Eaton Tracey

    RUNNERUP OF THE 2020 BODLEY HEAD / FINANCIAL TIMES ESSAY PRIZE'Just before the COVID19 quarantine, I moved into my girlfriend's apartment, a renovated garage in a forgotten triangl...

  • I Hate Myselfie synopsis, comments

    I Hate Myselfie

    Shane Dawson

    New York Times Bestseller Publishers Weekly Bestseller Los Angeles Times Bestseller Wall Street Journal BestsellerA brilliant, hilarious, and honest essay collection from #1 New Yo...

  • Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author synopsis, comments

    Records of Shelley, Byron and the Author

    Edward John Trelawny

    In February 1822 the writer and adventurer Edward John Trelawny arrived in Pisa to make the acquaintance of his heroes Shelley and Byron, leaving a broken marriage and an exotic se...

  • My First New York synopsis, comments

    My First New York

    New York Magazine

    From the staff of New York Magazine comes the perfect gift for the Manhattanite in all of us. My First New York is a glorious collection of recollections and reminiscences as fifty...

  • It Gets Better synopsis, comments

    It Gets Better

    Dan Savage & Terry Miller

    Every story can change a life. Watch a video Growing up isn't easy. Many young people face daily tormenting and bullying, making them feel like they have nowhere to tu...

  • An Apology for Raymond Sebond synopsis, comments

    An Apology for Raymond Sebond

    Michel Montaigne

    An Apology for Raymond Sebond is widely regarded as the greatest of Montaigne's essays: a supremely eloquent expression of Christian scepticism. An empassioned defence of Sebond's ...

  • The Best of Me synopsis, comments

    The Best of Me

    David Sedaris

    “Genius… It is miraculous to read these pieces… You must read The Best of Me.” Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book ReviewA New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceA CNN a...

  • Zero Gravity synopsis, comments

    Zero Gravity

    Woody Allen & Daphne Merkin

    His first new collection of short humor in fifteen years is classic Woody Allen. Zero Gravity is the fifth collection of comic pieces by Woody Allen, a hilarious prose st...

  • Essays and Letters synopsis, comments

    Essays and Letters

    Friedrich Hölderlin, Charlie Louth & Jeremy Adler

    One of Germany's greatest poets, Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (17701843) was also a prose writer of intense feeling, intelligence and perception. This new translation of se...

  • Traces Remain synopsis, comments

    Traces Remain

    Charles Nicholl

    In these wonderfully stylish and eclectic essays, Charles Nicholl pursues the fugitive traces of the past with the skill and relish that have earned him a reputation as one of the ...

  • Beyond the Pleasure Principle synopsis, comments

    Beyond the Pleasure Principle

    Sigmund Freud

    A collection of some of Freud's most famous essays, including ON THE INTRODUCTION OF NARCISSISM; REMEMBERING, REPEATING AND WORKING THROUGH; BEYOND THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE; THE EGO ...

  • Language Myths synopsis, comments

    Language Myths

    Laurie Bauer & Peter Trudgill

    A unique collection of original essays by 21 of the world's leading linguists. The topics discussed focus on some of the most popular myths about language: The Media Are Ruining En...

  • Undoctored synopsis, comments

    Undoctored

    Adam Kay

    THE NO. 1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER NOW INCLUDING BRAND NEW MATERIALTHIS IS GOING TO HURT was the bestselling nonfiction book of the century a frank, funny and furious look at the ...

  • David Sedaris Diaries synopsis, comments

    David Sedaris Diaries

    David Sedaris & Jeffrey Jenkins

    A remarkable illustrated volume of artwork and images selected from the diaries David Sedaris has been creating for four decadesIn this richly illustrated book, readers will for th...

  • The Partly Cloudy Patriot synopsis, comments

    The Partly Cloudy Patriot

    Sarah Vowell

    From public radio This American Life contributor and selfdescribed “history nerd” Sarah Vowell comes a collection of humorous and personal essays investigating American history, po...

  • No Job for a Man synopsis, comments

    No Job for a Man

    John Ross Bowie

    A darkly witty, deeply affecting, and finely crafted memoir by the Big Bang Theory andSpeechless star and comedian, John Ross Bowie.From his earliest memories o...