Theft by finding : diaries (1977-2002) / David Sedaris.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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 2017 An AV Club Favorite Book of 2017 A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2017 A 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 .

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Humorist Sedaris's first volume of diaries offers his unique point of view in snippets from the years 1977-2002. The entries are irregular in length and veer wildly from topic to topic. In them you will find funny snark; portraits of ugly racism, sexism, and homophobia; Sedaris's drug use; life as a teacher, writer, and odd-job man; reliance on his parents; watching his sister's (Amy Sedaris) success; and his own slow journey toward his own. There are usually no connections between the short entries, and the author himself suggests that this is the kind of material to dip into at random and just listen for a while. Sedaris reads the entries himself, giving them authenticity and the intended delivery. With its eclectic, disconnected, and brief pieces, this is the ideal library checkout. However much of the audio-book the listener is able to get to before it's due back, it will be a rewarding experience. VERDICT Recommended for aspiring authors, NPR listeners, people interested in late 20th-century experiences, and, of course, fans of snark. ["For Sedaris fans, this is a primary source not to miss, but even the more casual reader will be drawn in, as the author comes into his own as a writer and a person": LJ 4/15/17 review of the Little, Brown hc.]-Tristan Boyd, Austin, TX © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

This American Life and New Yorker humorist Sedaris (Naked) displays the raw material for his celebrated essays with these scintillating excerpts from his personal journals. Sedaris collects entries stretching back to his penniless salad days working odd jobs (apple picker, construction worker, house cleaner, a now-famous stint as a Christmas elf), hanging out at the International House of Pancakes and wrestling half-heartedly with drink and drugs. He moves on to his breakthrough as a memoirist and playwright and then to later embroilments and obsessions, including a fixation on feeding flies to pet spiders. Here as elsewhere, Sedaris is a latter-day Charlie Chaplin: droll, put-upon but not innocent, and besieged by all sorts of obstreperous or menacing folks. The frequent appearance of colorful weirdos spouting pithy dialogue may strike some readers as unlikely to be entirely true. But Sedaris's storytelling, even in diary jottings, is so consistently well-crafted and hilarious that few will care whether it's embroidered. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Sedaris' diaries are the wellspring for his cuttingly funny autobiographical essays, and he now presents a mesmerizing volume of deftly edited passages documenting 35 years of weird, disturbing, and hilarious experiences. Theft by Finding, Sedaris' latest riddling title, following Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013), is a sly allusion to his artistic method: he is a champion eavesdropper and omnivorous observer, and this selective diary is basically a set of meticulous field notes cataloging atrocious human behavior. In 1977, college-dropout Sedaris is hitchhiking out West, picking fruit for pitiful wages, and getting high. He returns to Raleigh, his hometown, where he works odd jobs, makes art, and matter-of-factly records a litany of alarming encounters with enraged strangers, a theme that continues after he moves to Chicago, attends art school, and begins writing in earnest, and then in New York, where he ascends. People throw rocks and bottles at him, insult and threaten him, demand money and cigarettes. He records a constant barrage of racist, sexist, and anti-gay outbursts, and portrays an array of hustlers, eccentrics, bullies, and misfits. Sedaris is caustically witty about his bad habits and artistic floundering. Even when he cleans up his act, falls in love, and achieves raving success, Sedaris remains self-deprecating and focused on the bizarre and the disquieting. A candid, socially incisive, and sharply amusing chronicle of the evolution of an arresting comedic artist. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Devotees of mega-best-selling Sedaris have been waiting for access to his diary, and a robust marketing plan will get the word out fast.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2017 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Raw glimpses of the humorist's personal life as he clambered from starving artist to household name.For years, Sedaris (Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, 2013, etc.) has peppered his public readings with samples from his diaries, usually comic vignettes with a gently skewed view of humanity. Those are in abundance here. "Jews in concentration camps had shaved heads and tattoos," he writes after learning about a Chicago skinhead's arrest. "You'd think the anti-Semites would go for a different look." Forced to trim his toenails with poultry shears for lack of clippers, he writes, "that is exactly why you don't want people staying in your apartment when you're not there, or even when you are, really." The diaries also provide Ur-texts for some of the author's most famous stories, like his stint as a Macy's Christmas elf that led to his breakthrough radio piece, "The SantaLand Diaries," or the short-tempered, chalk-throwing French teacher in Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). But though the mood is usually light, the book is also a more serious look into his travails as an artist and person: Sedaris is candid about his early ambitions to succeed as a writer, his imposter syndrome as a teacher, his squabbles with his never-satisfied dad and mentally ill sister, Tiffany, and his alcoholism. Even that last challenge, though, is framed as comic, or at least the stuff of non sequitur: "Today I saw a one-armed dwarf carrying a skateboard. It's been ninety days since I've had a drink." While Sedaris' career took flight during the period this book captures, success didn't change him much; it just introduced him to a broader swath of the world to observe and satirize. He can hardly believe his good luck, so he's charmed by the woman who, upon escorting him to a packed bookstore reading, exclaims, "goodness, they must be having a sale." A surprisingly poignant portrait of the artist as a young to middle-aged man. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

David Sedaris was born in Binghamton, New York on December 26, 1956, but he grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Much of Sedaris' humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating, and it often concerns his family life, his middle class upbringing in the suburbs of North Carolina. He graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1987. He is a popular radio commentator, essayist, and short story writer. He held many part-time and odd jobs before getting a job reading excerpts from his diaries on National Public Radio in 1992.

His first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, was published in 1994. His other works include Naked, Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002), and Calypso. Me Talk Pretty One Day won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2001. He has also written several plays with his sister Amy Sedaris including Stump the Host, Stitches, and The Little Frieda Mysteries. In 2014 her title, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, made The New York Times Best Seller List.

(Bowker Author Biography)