Theft by Finding: Diaries: Volume One

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'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' Brian Logan, 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.

Reviews

The funniest writer alive today - Jonathan Ross, interview with David Sedaris

But this inability to be normal, at first a handicap, has become his metier. He morphed into a deadbeat artist, then a drug addict, then an improbably successful writer. His five most recent books all made the New York Times bestseller list...his writing also sings about how brilliantly clever, inventive and funny he is, a poet for everyone who wouldn't live the ordinary life if you paid them - Guardian review of Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

Long may he write and long may the 'Indefinite Leave' sticker remain in the once stolen and now returned passport of this honorary Briton - Viv Groskop, Telegraph review of Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

Sedaris . . . can identify with almost any absurd situation and wring the last drop of wit from it - Daily Mail review of Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls

Sedaris can bring to mind Anthony Trollope, P.G. Wodehouse, Alice Munro, and Woody Allen, sometimes in the same paragraph - New York Times Book Review

Sedaris has a unique take on life, and there are plenty of his trademark funny anecdotes and observational humour, but this book needed a good edit. - Australian Financial Review

This entertaining collection of diary notes from David Sedaris is not so much a memoir as observations about events taking place around him. It is a book that you can delve into anywhere and be assured of an amusing or thought-provoking entry - City Messenger

There's a lot of meth, anonymous sex and gruelling jobs here. There is also the fun of watching one of literature's leading humourists develop his craft. - Who Weekly

Author Bio

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humor writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.

David Sedaris is the author of eleven previous books, including, most recently, The Best of Me, Calypso, and Theft by Finding. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.