The Best of Me

Product Description What could be a more tempting Christmas 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; two never-before-collected stories, 'Unbuttoned' and 'Undecided'; and a new interview with David Sedaris.Table of ContentsGlen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2Front Row Center with Thaddeus BristolChristmas Means GivingThe Incomplete QuadYou Can't Kill the RoosterMe Talk Pretty One DayJesus ShavesUs and ThemLet It SnowThe Ship ShapeThe Girl Next DoorRepeat After MeSix to Eight Black MenPossessionNuit of the Living DeadThe UnderstudyIn the Waiting RoomSolution to Saturday's PuzzleTown and CountryThe Cat and the BaboonThe Motherless BearThe Faithful SetterDentists Without BordersThink DifferenterMemory LapsLoggerheadsIf I Ruled the WorldEasy, TigerLaugh, KookaburraA Guy Walks into a Bar CarStanding ByUnderstanding Understanding OwlsNow We Are FiveA House DividedThe Perfect FitLeviathanA Modest ProposalWhy Aren't You Laughing?The Spirit WorldUnbuttoned Review For the past couple of decades, David Sedaris has more or less created his own genre, with his confessional stories that reveal both the absurdity and the emotion of everyday life. His funniest and most incisive work is now brought together in one volume ― BBC A whirlwind tour of this genius writer's greatest hits ― Stylist The ideal introduction for anyone not yet acquainted with the American master of deadpan autobiographical comedy. Sedaris selects highlights from his three decades of making readers and listeners laugh, wince and sob at the weirdness and wonder of other people ― Guardian Dipping into David Sedaris's mind in his wonderful collected works The Best of Me has been a balm and a joy ― i newapaper Book Description 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). From the Inside Flap 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 The Best 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 - quit