Name: Gelaine Trinidad's review of The Best of Me by David Sedaris
Item: The Best of Me
Rating: 4
Author: Gelaine Trinidad

David Sedaris

A lavish gift edition of David Sedaris's best stories, spanning his spectacular bestselling career. Hand-picked by David himself, these are stories that will make you laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time, from "the funniest man alive" (Time Out New York). What could be a more tempting holiday gift than a compendium of David Sedaris's best stories, selected by the author himself? From a spectacular career spanning almost three decades, these stories have become modern classics and are now for the first time collected in one volume. The collection will also feature an introduction by the author; a never-before-collected story, "Unbuttoned"; and a new interview with David Sedaris. Table of Contents Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2 Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol Christmas Means Giving The Incomplete Quad You Can't Kill the Rooster Me Talk Pretty One Day Jesus Shaves Us and Them Let It Snow The Ship Shape The Girl Next Door Repeat After Me Six to Eight Black Men Possession Nuit of the Living Dead The Understudy In the Waiting Room Solution to Saturday's Puzzle Town and Country The Cat and the Baboon The Motherless Bear The Faithful Setter Dentists Without Borders Think Differenter Memory Laps Loggerheads If I Ruled the World Easy, Tiger Laugh, Kookaburra A Guy Walks into a Bar Car Standing By Understanding Understanding Owls Now We Are Five A House Divided The Perfect Fit Leviathan A Modest Proposal Why Aren't You Laughing? The Spirit World Unbuttoned

The Best of Me

Deyana

There's an Allan Gurganus quote I think of quite often: "Without much accuracy, with strangely little love at all, your family will decide for you exactly who you are, and they’ll keep nudging, coaxing, poking you until you've changed into that very simple shape." Is there a richer or more complex story than that?

Just as we can never really tell what our own breath smells like, I will never know if I would like my writing.

Danai koftori

Gelaine Trinidad

I think it's a big mistake to read this book without the audiobook narrated by the author himself. He is morbidly funny. Some essays will make you want to recoil in second-hand embarrassment. Sedaris' narration sets the tone of this book. There were also some live recordings included in the audiobook (I found myself laughing along quite often with the audience). His humour may be an acquired taste for some people. For example, he will talk about his sister's suicide then move on to his prostate exam experience next. Some essays are fables with a hint of dark comedy. Many of the nonfiction pieces are about his family and life growing up in North Carolina. The fiction pieces are brilliant as well (i.e. Jesus Shaves, The Cat and the Baboon, and The Motherless Bear). My favourite essays would have to be "Solution to Saturday's Puzzle" and "A Guy Walks into a Bar Car". I like how he writes about his relationship with his mom, dad, and siblings. Each member of the family is very unique. He has 5 other siblings thus making it a very vibrant and interesting household to live in. Those childhood memories inspired many of his essays. He talks about his family in a candid yet sincere way. The concluding essays were slightly more solemn. He writes about death and changes in his family dynamics. There were also some reflection pieces as he looks back in his career and the successes he’s achieved. I found myself laughing quite a bit while reading this essay collection. I recommend this book to those who need a laugh and looking for an easy read. I think this is also a good introduction to David Sedaris' work for those who are interested.

Enjoyable comic writing that had me laughing out loud in places, with some autobiographical stories that are very touching.

Laura Dobie

Ozge Kara

I listened to it’s audiobook and listening to David Sedaris is always amazing. Unfortunately I read many of the stories in the book already and the fictional stories, I didn’t enjoy that much.

Megan Snodgrass

Guys.. it's David Sedaris, like I'd give anything he wrote less than 5 stars especially when its a compilation of all the best things he's written. Always do audio. Not sure if it's in the hardcopy of the book but the interview at the end was also a real treat. 10/10 Sedaris stan 4eva.

In the past couple of years, I distanced myself from Sedaris. I felt uncomfortable reading some of his work, and I thought, well, by 2021, you'd think he'd have disclaimers for some language or takes from years past. And then, last night, I had the privilege of having him sign a book of his that I hadn't even read yet, and as I approached the table he was seated at, surrounded by markers he himself had brought with him, he asked if I was in high school. I'm 22.

I'm 22, but I started reading Sedaris when I was 15. I know it was my freshman or sophomore year of high school. I wanted to write an essay about 

, and my teacher at the time was apprehensive. Maybe she thought the subject matter was too inappropriate for a 15-year-old. I found this shocking considering I had turned in poetry that should have gotten me sent to a counselor or at the very least some further questioning. Instead, in the margins of where I describe a moment as a seven-year-old imagining my body falling off of a six-or-so-story balcony, she wrote "cryptic." Yes, quite so.

Sedaris' work can be controversial, sure. But it is within his blunt and absurd writing where he unpacks these quiet truths, and one moment you find yourself giggling at the word sphincter but then tearing up because you're not sure if your family has ever truly loved you in a way that you could ever understand or translate.

He says, "Seek approval from the one person you desperately want it from, and you're guaranteed not to get it." So when he asked if I was in high school, I could have lied, but I told the truth. And I felt that within mere seconds of speaking to this man who would never remember me, but whose words would pleasantly haunt me for the rest of my life, I had already disappointed him. What a relief.

In the past couple of years, I distanced myself from Sedaris. I felt uncomfortable reading some of his work, and I thought, well, by 2021, you'd think he'd have disclaimers for some language or takes from years past. And then, last night, I had the privilege of having him sign a book of his that I hadn't even read yet, and as I approached the table he was seated at, surrounded by markers he himself had brought with him, he asked if I was in high school. I'm 22.

I'm 22, but I started reading Sedaris when I was 15. I know it was my freshman or sophomore year of high school. I wanted to write an essay about When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and my teacher at the time was apprehensive. Maybe she thought the subject matter was too inappropriate for a 15-year-old. I found this shocking considering I had turned in poetry that should have gotten me sent to a counselor or at the very least some further questioning. Instead, in the margins of where I describe a moment as a seven-year-old imagining my body falling off of a six-or-so-story balcony, she wrote "cryptic." Yes, quite so.

Sedaris' work can be controversial, sure. But it is within his blunt and absurd writing where he unpacks these quiet truths, and one moment you find yourself giggling at the word sphincter but then tearing up because you're not sure if your family has ever truly loved you in a way that you could ever understand or translate.

He says, "Seek approval from the one person you desperately want it from, and you're guaranteed not to get it." So when he asked if I was in high school, I could have lied, but I told the truth. And I felt that within mere seconds of speaking to this man who would never remember me, but whose words would pleasantly haunt me for the rest of my life, I had already disappointed him. What a relief.

Helen Bright

David Sedaris’s best stories and essays, spanning his remarkable career—as selected by the author himself For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird. But if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. In these pages, Sedaris explores falling in love and staying together, recognizing his own aging not in the mirror but in the faces of his siblings, losing one parent and coming to terms—at long last—with the other. Taken together, the stories in TheBest of Me reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected—it’s often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder—but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful. Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive” (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing—quite often at himself—and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.

Danai koftori &
The Best of Me by David Sedaris

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Danai koftori &The Best of Me by David Sedaris

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Join the club

Danai koftori &
The Best of Me by David Sedaris