David Sedaris

One of the most anticipated books of 2017: Boston Globe, New York Times Book Review, New York's "Vulture", The Week, Bustle, BookRiot An NPR Best Book of 2017An AV Club Favorite Book of 2017A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2017A Goodreads Choice Awards nominee David Sedaris tells all in a book that is, literally, a lifetime in the making. For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest 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 the story 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. 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 proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It's a potent reminder that when you're as perceptive and curious as Sedaris, there's no such thing as a boring day.

Diaries (1977-2002)

Theft by Finding

Heather Margaret

I feel bad giving this book such a low score because I have liked books written by Sedaris before. I just couldn’t get into the flow of this type of book. I thought I’d like it, little stories within a life story, but in the end I just could not enjoy it. And, really, how many insanely crazy and weird people can one person know?

erin

Pepys is next :-P

But actually: I love this. It's wonderfully uneven. Boring, funny, sad, scatological, and gay. But not all at once.

Matthew Royal

All of David Sedaris's self-read audiobooks worm themselves into your brain, replacing any inner monologue they find with his voice. However, "Theft by Finding" is the most "Being John Malkovich" of them all, as we're catapulted into fragments of his life over nearly three decades. Initially I could only stand it in pieces, waiting in line at the airport for sandwiches, but I finally decided to finish it in one, big gulp. It's a window into his writing process, but also "It's my head, Sedaris. It's my head!"

Jeannette Ordas

Lots of amusing entries and lots to wade through and quite a few things that had me chuckling out loud. There's better books by Sedaris, and you're probably familiar with a few of the situations in his diary, but his observations and one-liners are sharp and witty.

Marisel 

I really believe that one has to be a devoted curious observer of the ordinary moments of the everyday AND have a very keen interest in the way someone’s mind works, in order to enjoy reading someone’s personal diaries. Luckily, I possess both. Additionally, if I love an author’s writing style and become enamored with their unusualness as a human, I will easily read every single thing they’ve written. This has only happened to me a handful of times. Currently, David is that guy. I can’t get enough; and this volume filled in so many gaps. How someone chooses to publish their personal diaries— what they choose to include, what they leave out, how they reword and restructure entries— is a fascinating concept, which will always remain a mystery to the reader. I wondered, but didn’t need to know, what prompted these specific selections; they were just personal enough, funny enough, enigmatic enough. I’m already set to start volume two, which was recently released. Sometimes there’s so much extraordinary life in the ordinary moments of living, and Sedaris is SO good at spotting them.

Deyana

In my opinion, there are two broad categories of books. (1) Books that make you want to read (even more), and (2) Books that make you want to write. This one falls in the latter category. 

I've read almost all of Sedaris' books because both my mom and one of my best friends adore his voice and stories. Personally, I haven't felt that deep admiration since I read Me Talk Pretty One Day when I was 15 or 16. This book, however, turned things around for me. It was so fascinating to be able to recognize events in the entries that served as the basis for his longer-form essays in his other works. I'm excited to read his other entries post 2002 hopefully sometime soon!

Emily Burns

ananya

Eric Smith

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER 'He's like an American Alan Bennett, in that his own fastidiousness becomes the joke, as per the taxi encounter, or his diary entry about waiting interminably in a coffee-bar queue' Guardian review of An Evening with David Sedaris The point is to find out who you are and to be true to that person. Because so often you can't. Won't people turn away if they know the real me? you wonder. The me that hates my own child, that put my perfectly healthy dog to sleep? The me who thinks, deep down, that maybe The Wire was overrated? For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding, Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From the family home in Ralegh, North Carolina, we follow Sedaris as he sets out to make his way in the world. As an art student and then teacher in Chicago he works at a succession of very odd jobs, meeting even odder people, before moving to New York to pursue a career as a writer - where instead he very quickly lands a job in Macy's department store as an elf in Santaland... Tender, hilarious, illuminating, and endlessly captivating, Theft by Finding offers a rare look into the mind of one of our generation's greatest comic geniuses.

Theft by Finding Diaries (1977-2002)

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