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Summary: Great Distraction !
Review: This book is a collection of essays regarding the life of David Sedaris. Some are hilarious, others are more mundane, and some just leave you wondering why they're included in the book. All of them, however, contain a slightly slanted viewpoint about everyday occurences in the life of the author. I enjoyed most of the essays, but some include some rather crude language.This book was great for my busy schedule. I could pick it up and read an essay or two, put it down for a few days, and then pick it up again without losing any continuity. Great reading for relaxation and enjoyment.
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Summary: just hilarious
Review: About a year ago, my brother, while visting, accidently left his copy of Naked behind. I read it, and i got hooked. I waited forMe Talk Pretty One Dayto come out for so long, and i was not dissapointed. It is...hilarious. Other reviewers of this book have spoken their dissapointment because the book is not continuosly sidespliting. It doesn't need to be. Sedaris has the remarkable talent for bringing the humourous out of the ordinary. He writes casualy, as if his readers already know him. His caustic and biting writing style and pleasing and more often than not, just funny. He pokes at everyone, his family and himself. His stories are believable, but only just, which makes them all the more interesting. He writes like a normal, everyday person, expressing normal everday occurences and thoughts. His work can be sad and extremley funny at the same time. He hit the nail right on the head in most of the stories, after reading the book, i realized that i agreed with him on most everything he wrote. This man is amazingly persuasive and exceptionally funny. I reccomend this book to anyone looking for a good read!
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Summary: You will look like a fool laughing out loud in public.
Review: This book was an absolute gem to read. I read it on a train ride to NYC several months ago and found myself laughing -- and having to stifle my laughter realizing where I was. There isn't one story in this set that won't bring a smile and faint air of recognition. Enjoy...
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Summary: Hysterical AND My First Experience with an Audiobook!
Review: This is a review of the CD audio book version of ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY. I want to say from the start that if you have the choice of reading the printed book or listening to a recording of it, I would strongly recommend the audio book version. I know hundreds of thousands of people have listened to books on tape or CD, but this was a first for me. And I can't imagine a better book to start off with. While I enjoy reading Sedaris on page, he is the perfect reader of his own stories. I wouldn't want to listen to him read Jane Austen or Tolstoy, but I also wouldn't want to hear anyone else read these stories. Sound wise, the recordings are overall good. Several of the recordings are of live performances in front of crowds, and in many ways, these are the more enjoyable. I found myself getting more involved in the stories as the crowds did. However, in reading live, Sedaris sometimes sounds a bit strained and thin in his voice. Several of the stories were recorded in studios, and while his voice is much lower and less strained, the performances don't have quite the same degree of vitality as the live performances. I also found the music that accompanied some of the studio recordings to be a bit distracting. As far as the stories themselves go, while a few of the stories come from the periods of his life that his readers have come to know from previous books, most of them come from adulthood, and even from his period of success as an author. Probably half of the stories come from the time he has spent living in France, apparently struggling against the limits of his own French (the title comes from a literal English translation of a statement he makes in a French class about his goals with that language). Whether one prefers this book to NAKED hangs upon nothing but one's own personality. I prefer NAKED, but prefer hearing Sedaris reading his work to reading it myself. I think the main thing is that the work is consistently good through all the books. So, whether you read this yourself or listen to David read it to you, I heartily recommend this book.
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Summary: Can somebody tell me what was funny about this book?
Review: From reading the reviews for this book it is clear that this book isn't funny to everybody. I was expecting at least a couple of laughs out of the 270 pages, but it never really happened. This book is written as an autobiography about someone to whom nothing significantly interesting happened in his entire life. The book is composed of banal anectodes that could happen to anybody but that nobody would ever think of writing a book about. The first part of the book is definitely not funny, whereas the second part is slightly better. I got this book as a present and I'm glad I didn't spend any of my own money on it. If you want to read a biography, read one about someone who lived an interesting life!
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Summary: Can you say hysterical? I knew you could.
Review: It is very rare that I laugh out loud whilst reading. I laughed out loud several times while reading this book--read it in one day. Only people who have no sense of humor would not enjoy it. It is wonderful. I wished I had read it more slowly, but I couldn't stop myself.
Rating:
Summary: Hysterical
Review: Sedaris manages to give us both a laugh-out-loud read and a wonderful portrait of a man and the way he relates to his world. His characters are vivid (in particular his siblings, the Rooster and Amy). His stories are typically self deprecating with a hint of regret or sadness. But he manages to keep it light, leaving you laughing the whole time. The myriad of essay subjects manages to portray so many aspects of one person's life. Since reading the book, everyone I run into who has already read it and I have spent time retelling the stories Sedaris tells. This will not be the most intellectually challenging or deep book you read this year, but it might be the most fun!
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Summary: A laugh a minute
Review: (...) I rarely buy a book when I do not know what it's about...but this was an impulse buy. I have never been so entertained with a book in my life!!!! Absolutely hilarious and intelligently sarcastic...my type of book! I now have tickets to hear him lecture and have already bought his other books, which i'm sure will be equally entertaining.
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Summary: When will it end?
Review: I found this book a struggle to get through. It had nothing substantial in it to hold one's interest. I wish I had been warned before commiting myself to reading it. Torture......Boring......I'm glad its over.......Never Again!
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Summary: Sometimes Sedaris Is Funny, Sometimes He's Really Not
Review: This is the first book by David Sedaris I have ever read and it will likely be the last. He writes well. The problem is I didn't find a lot of his writing particularly funny. Perhaps my expectations were set a little too high by the glowing reviews I had read, but I kept expecting to find myself rolling on the floor with laughter. That just didn't happen. I sensed the author often thought he was writing something funny, but that only made it worse. Oh sure, Sedaris got a chuckle out of me here and there - as I said, he writes well. But the peals of laughter never came. And what was with the homosexual references, interludes, and otherwise failed humor? At times it seemed like Sedaris was trying to laugh at himself, at other times it seemed like he expected everybody to see the humor inherent in his sexual preferences. In most cases, I found the display to be out of place. That is, Sedaris' perverse sexuality usually fit into his narrative like a road kill fits on a stretch of two-lane blacktop. Sure, you expect to find one now and then, but it doesn't make the trip any more pleasant. This isn't autobiographical humor along the lines of Mark Twain, or Jean Shepherd, or Patrick F. McManus. It just doesn't work the same way as any of the examples I've just given. In fact, as I see it, Sedaris' humor usually doesn't work - not for me, at least.
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