David Sedaris Audiobooks

David Sedaris, born in 1956, is an American humorist, comedian, author and radio contributor who found national recognition in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay Santaland Diaries. His first collection, Barrel Fever, followed in 1994; Naked, in 1997, became the first of a string of New York Times bestsellers; and Me Talk Pretty One Day won the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2000. In 2019 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

His material is his life, mined without mercy: his family, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage, his homosexuality, odd jobs, drug use and obsessive behaviours, and his years living in France, London, New York and the South Downs in England. He is the brother and writing collaborator of the actress Amy Sedaris – comic timing evidently runs in the family.

Sedaris came up through radio, and it shows: his essays are built for the ear, with every pause and pay-off placed exactly where a listener needs it. In our catalogue, Happy-Go-Lucky offers his later, darker-edged reflections, A Carnival of Snackery serves his observational comedy in diary-sized portions ideal for short journeys, and The Land and its People rounds out the set.

His years in England give UK listeners the added pleasure of seeing ourselves observed by an outsider with a notebook. Self-deprecating, sharp and frequently appalling – in the most enjoyable way.