Rating: 
Summary: The Funniest Book I Ever Read
Review: I was about to go on a long plane trip. A good friend gave me Naked, saying "I hear this guy on NPR and for some reason I think of you." I never did read the book on the plane ride (lucky for my fellow frequent flyers since my laughter would have annoyed them no end). When I finally got around to reading it I laughed from start to finish.In one chapter (I can't use the book for a reference since it is in circulation to all my good friends who have a demented sense of humor) he talks about his mother's discovery that she has terminal cancer. The idea that this can be side-splittingly funny without being mean spirited is amazing and indicitive of how brilliant Sedaris is. If life is getting you down and you need someone to make you laugh precisely because life can suck sometimes, find a place where you won't annoy people with your laughter and read Naked.
Rating:
Summary: Each Essay Is A Perfect Bon Bon
Review: Never having read Sedaris before Naked, I was unprepared. Sitting on the Third Avenue bus going uptown, maybe two pages into the first story, A Plague of Tics, I burst out laughing. People don't laugh out loud on NYC buses unless they're with a group of friends. I looked around guiltily, tried to get that stupid grin off my face, and continued to read. It was a lost cause. I continued giggling the whole ride up. The first essay is the funniest, but they are all good. Get Your Ya-Ya's Out was fabulous. Naked wonderful. There are a couple of amazing ones, the names of which I can't remember - one dealing with he and his sisters finding an old dirty book, which is hysterical, and another about his mother dying of cancer which is pretty brutal and actually made me all misty-eyed. This is my favorite of the Sedaris books. They're all good, but to my mind, none can hold a candle to Naked. One tip for reading - don't do what I did and read the book thru in a day. Read one story and put the book down. Pick it up a couple days later and read another. You will enjoy it so much more that way. Treat them like very expensive bon-bons from a fancy chocolate shop.
Rating:
Summary: Pure Pleasure
Review: I think David Sedaris is a gem. This was the first book of his I came upon. I am now reading it again. I'm sure my own dysfunctional family matters make it sweeter for me. Some may be offended by his style, but no one does it better.
Rating:
Summary: Laugh Out Loud Funny
Review: At first I couldn't understand what all the hoopla was over a memoir about a guy I had never heard of. Then. I read. Never have I laughed out loud so much when reading. David Sedaris' life growing up in a big family in North Carolia is either real or fiction, I don't care. Read it and enjoy. Especially the chapter on his obsessive compulsiveness and inclination of licking light switches.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not funny
Review: This is a good book: well written, entertaining, interesting, insightful, at times poignant. But it's just not funny. Various other reviewers have described this book as "hilarious," "side-splitting," etc. I just didn't find it to be so. Should you buy it? Sure, it's a good read. But if you want funny, read Dave Barry.
Rating:
Summary: Guaranteed to embarrass you if you read this book in public
Review: I bought this book for my wife for Christmas and then had to sit there in jealousy as she chuckled, giggled, snorted and roared her way through this book. When she finished the book and let me read it, I now knew what she was laughing about. Sedaris' antics with his dysfunctional, Greek-American family are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. I made the mistake of reading this book on the train, and I could not contain my laughter at points. The chapters on "Ya-Ya," hitchhiking back home from college with his parapeligic "wife," speaking Elizabethan English at the family dinner table, riding a Greyhound bus on the floor, etc., will have you, literally, rolling on the floor. I enjoyed Sedaris' catchy one-liners and deadpan humor in describing people he encounters even more than his wacky antics. What also makes this book attractive is that Sedaris is not just poking fun at people or deliberately being funny for humor's sake. In the middle of a chapter, he would say something profound or make you realize that the guy is much deeper than a humor writer. That provided a welcome relief to the hours of side-splitting laughter that you'll be enduring when picking up this book. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: funny and complicated
Review: Sedaris writes scathingly about a wide range of outrageous characters and incidents, e.g., the nudist colony experience which is the subject of the eponymous final chapter. Coupled with being gay, that is, with the stereotypical connotations of La Cage Aux Folles-style flamboyance, the lurid title "Naked" might come across at first blush as embodying the book's scandalously funny contents. To me, however, the book's title seems to be referring more to the state of Sedaris's soul while writing these pieces. While I did find myself laughing giddily in many places at Sedaris's humorous observations and turns of phrase, the overall impression I had was of a brooding heart, painfully aware of life's absurdity and its own failings. Sedaris seems to have been born too conscious, in every sense. So along with appreciating the comedy, I would suggest peering through the humorous haze of absurd scenarios and make out the subtle background hues, to see the real man struggling to find himself. Read as a book of funny tales, the book gets 4 stars, because the biting humor and silliness wore a bit thin toward the middle. Read as a straightforward memoir, the book gets 4 stars, because I got the sense that even in baring himself, Sedaris is still hiding some essential self-stuff. He admits himself that he can't help being tongue-in-cheek about everything; the coating of goofy absurdity pasted on most things in the book is even a little too polished and slick. While admiring its sheen I felt I kept sliding upon it, away from the 'real' Sedaris. But maybe that's exactly the point. Read as an impressionist sketch of the author's philosophy and state of mind, it is probably all the more real for its masks and self-consciousness and diversions. In any case, whether you are by nature attracted to the grinning or frowning mask, you'll find something here for you.
Rating:
Summary: One funny guy....
Review: I always like hearing Sedaris on NPR; so when some friends gave me this book for XMAS, I was glad to read it! This was a really funny book, well written, and surprisingly full of social commentary (but not so much that you get hit over the head with it....) I would say that I laughed the whole way through, however, there were a few points where I actually was angry at some of the characters in the book, and at times wished he was not as self righteous as he sometimes seemed to be. But overall, I really enjoyed the book, and read through it in a day and a half... a great read... Don't miss the nudist colony chapter... I guess Doug Adams was right... ALWAYS bring a towel...
Rating:
Summary: Laugh Out Loud Hilarious
Review: The best thing about David Sedaris is that he is NOT a gay writer... he just happens to be gay. When he mentions something about his sexuality, it's very matter of fact- and really has nothing to do with the story he's trying to tell. I found so many things that I could relate to in this book... and things that made me think that my own family really isn't all that strange (when compared to his family!) Everyone I have ever let borrow this book has wound up buying it for themselves (or received it as a gift!). If you hate this book there is something really, really wrong with you!! Make sure you check out all of David's other books- they are all completely wonderful, and all have a permanent place in my book shelf! Check out his audio tapes too... you have not lived until you've heard David's Billie Holiday impression!
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: After the hilarious "Me talk pretty some day", I was looking forward to this volume. It was a big letdown. For one thing, the author comes across as a very unpleasant person, one who lacks any sympathy for others. Everything is "me, me, me", "I am so great and everyone else deserves to be poor and to suffer". He takes advantage of other people's kindness (something he could use a bit of) and then mistakes it for stupidity and mocks them even when they are good enough to keep him from starvation. I left the book feeling toward the author as if he were someone I would never want to deal with. An unsavory revelation of a man who I once thought of as a clever comic talent but now see as a creep. If anyone finds his essays here about quadraplegics and very poor working people (and their homes, which he loves to make fun of) funny, you are welcome to join the creepy human society of which Sedaris is now an honorary member. Too bad Sedaris is too shallow to be able to mix his humour with a bit of pity and warmth. He might rise above the merely vulgar and predictable misanthropy which he wallows in and become a first class humourist. An adolescent attempt at humour that goes nowhere and isn't funny. Stick with "Me talk pretty some day" and "Barrel Fever" if you are looking for laughs.
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