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David Sedaris

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Me Talk Pretty One Day 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by David Sedaris (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.3 8,872 ratings

Part of: Me Talk Pretty One Day (1 books)

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A new collection from David Sedaris is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris has inspired hilarious pieces, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, about his attempts to learn French. His family is another inspiration. You Cant Kill the Rooster is a portrait of his brother who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers and cashiers with 6-inch fingernails. Compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne, Sedaris has become one of our best-loved authors. Sedaris is an amazing reader whose appearances draw hundreds, and his performancesincluding a jaw-dropping impression of Billie Holiday singing I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weinerare unforgettable. Sedariss essays on living in Paris are some of the funniest hes ever written. At last, someone even meaner than the French! The sort of blithely sophisticated, loopy humour that might have resulted if Dorothy Parker and James Thurber had had a love child. Entertainment Weekly on Barrel Fever Sidesplitting Not one of the essays in this new collection failed to crack me up; frequently I was helpless. The New York Times Book Review on Naked

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"It's a pretty grim world when I can't even feel superior to a toddler." Welcome to the curious mind of David Sedaris, where dogs outrank children, guitars have breasts, and French toddlers unmask the inadequacies of the American male. Sedaris inhabits this world as a misanthrope chronicling all things petty and small. In Me Talk Pretty One Day Sedaris is as determined as ever to be nobody's hero--he never triumphs, he never conquers--and somehow, with each failure, he inadvertently becomes everybody's favorite underdog. The world's most eloquent malcontent, Sedaris has turned self-deprecation into a celebrated art form--one that is perhaps best experienced in audio. "Go Carolina," his account of "the first battle of my war against the letter s" is particularly poignant. Unable to disguise the lisp that has become his trademark, Sedaris highlights (to hilarious extent) the frustration of reading "childish s-laden texts recounting the adventures of seals or settlers named Sassy or Samuel." Including 23 of the book version's 28 stories, two live performances complete with involuntary laughter, and an uncannily accurate Billie Holiday impersonation, the audio is more than a companion to the text; it stands alone as a performance piece--only without the sock monkeys. (Running time: 5 hours, 4 cassettes) --Daphne Durham

From Publishers Weekly

Sedaris is Garrison Keillor's evil twin: like the Minnesota humorist, Sedaris (Naked) focuses on the icy patches that mar life's sidewalk, though the ice in his work is much more slippery and the falls much more spectacularly funny than in Keillor's. Many of the 27 short essays collected here (which appeared originally in the New Yorker, Esquire and elsewhere) deal with his father, Lou, to whom the book is dedicated. Lou is a micromanager who tries to get his uninterested children to form a jazz combo and, when that fails, insists on boosting David's career as a performance artist by heckling him from the audience. Sedaris suggests that his father's punishment for being overly involved in his kids' artistic lives is David's brother Paul, otherwise known as "The Rooster," a half-literate miscreant whose language is outrageously profane. Sedaris also writes here about the time he spent in France and the difficulty of learning another language. After several extended stays in a little Norman village and in Paris, Sedaris had progressed, he observes, "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. 'Is thems the thoughts of cows?' I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window." But in English, Sedaris is nothing if not nimble: in one essay he goes from his cat's cremation to his mother's in a way that somehow manages to remain reverent to both of the departed. "Reliable sources" have told Sedaris that he has "tended to exhaust people," and true to form, he will exhaust readers of this new book, tooDwith helpless laughter. 16-city author tour. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

More sharp-tongued humor from Sedaris, who recently moved to France.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...Once you listen to him read his own words, it's hard to imagine settling for just the book." -- Library Journal, 10/15/00

About the Author

David Sedaris recently moved from New York to Paris. Raised in North Carolina, he has worked as a housecleaner and most famously, as a part-time elf for Macy's. Several of his plays have been produced, and his essays are featured regularly on BBC radio and in THE NEW YORKER and ESQUIRE.

From AudioFile

David Sedaris's deadpan delivery is the perfect foil to the bizarre in his latest collection of essays, and it's hard to imagine another reader recounting these unlikely anecdotes. Most of the readings were recorded in a Paris studio, although some live performances are interspersed, complete with an appreciative live audience. But their easy responses, sometimes as automatic as a television sitcom's laugh track, are often more distracting than encouraging. Listeners accustomed to Sedaris's stories on Public Radio International's "This American Life" will find these readings, about his family, his early adult life, living in France and attempting to learn the language, a little less exuberant, a little more thoughtful, suffering only, perhaps, from the absence of producer Ira Glass's masterful editorial hand. The tone does seem fitting, though, for the essays slide in and out of fleeting sadness, even as they mock and self-deprecate and aim for irony. Sedaris is at his worst when glib, and his least successful essays are those that rant against modern life: New York restaurants, computers. He is at his best when he's describing the absurdity of childhood, moments so unexpectedly strange and yet recognizable, like Sedaris's boyhood dream of performing a one-man show as Billie Holiday singing commercial jingles (and he provides pitch-perfect renditions), that they prompt gleeful, giddy laughter. J.M.D.-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000SEJHRA
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Back Bay Books; 1st edition (April 14, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 14, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2260 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 300 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #71,097 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #24 in Parenting & Family Humor
- #35 in Humor Essays (Kindle Store)
- #47 in Biographies & Memoirs of Authors

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4.3 8,872 ratings

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David Sedaris

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David Sedaris lives in Paris. Raised in North Carolina, he has worked as a housecleaner and most famously, as a part-time elf for Macy's. Several of his plays have been produced, and he is a regular contributor to ESQUIRE and Public Radio International's 'This American Life'.

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4.3 out of 5

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Macaela

witty and silly

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2024

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Loved this read, picked it for a girls trip to NYC. Read most of it between subway stops. Will read these short stories and essays to anyone willing to listen.

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Mark D. Walker

Author has become a humorist icon and his book is a fun read!

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2019

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I’d heard enough about the author’s wit and humor to finally purchase one of his books. I didn’t realize it was a compilation of his short stories which was initially confusing but I found a number of them hilarious. Although he’s no Mark Twain, I found his insights and cultural euphemisms and political correctness helped lighten up my day.
I can’t imagine him trying to convince family members to share some of the more outrageous stories about them. He’s teamed up with his sister Amy on several projects. She was brilliant when in one of his stories, she imitated a family friend and propositioned their father—making Sedaris one of the kings of parental grief giving.
On the whole, the author’s childhood memories were quite entertaining although I bought the book for his cross cultural witticism and stories of how language—or a lack of understanding it can have dire and very humorous consequences.
His insights into the French was entertaining and insightful although not as well developed as Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Bartow. But I enjoyed his quips about French language:

Nothing in France is free from sexual assignment. I was leafing through the dictionary, trying to complete a home-work assignment, when I noticed the French had prescribed genders for the various land masses and natural wonders we Americans had always thought of as sexless, Niagara Falls is feminine and, against all reason, the Grand Canyon is masculine….I wonder whose job it was to assign these sexes in the first place….

The author has become incredibly popular with seven million copies of his books in print after being translated into 25 languages. He’s been on several late night comedy shows lately and he does stand-up comedy. He’s the author of an anthology of stories, “Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories” and his essays appear regularly in Esquire and the New Yorker. He’s been at it for a while—he became the third recipient of the Thurber Prize for American humor in 2001. Sadaris and his sister Amy, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written several plays which have been produced at Lincoln Center. He’s also been nominated for two Grammys for Best Spoken Word Album ("Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim") and Best Comedy Album ("David Sedaris: Live at Carnegie Hall").
The author is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio4 and he lives in England. He’s become a humorist icon in our country and this book was well worth the read.

21 people found this helpful

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Lydia Dustin

Amazing book

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2024

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The funniest book ever. If you haven’t read this book, order it now! You’ll laugh until you cry. He’s a genius.

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Brian

Average Essay Anecdote

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2023

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The first half of the book contain personal stories of David from his time in the US ever since he was a child. Some of the stories were compelling and interesting while others seemed to fall flat and I questioned what was the point of these stories. Even when trying to find the humor that everyone claims that is in this book, I have had laughed seriously for only one part in this book. Maybe it's because I am out of touch since this book was written in 2001 and I am reading this in early 2023, but I did not find any of his humor to be as compelling as I thought.

The second half of the book is where the book definitely seems to shine, since this is supposed to be about his time France and his struggles with the French language. I loved all of those essays with the exception of two.

I feel like my biggest issue with this book is that even though David is supposed to be the main center of attention with his personal narratives, I tend to feel no sympathy for the guy and he seems rather arrogant to me in his story telling. Maybe that is his personal way of telling funny jokes, but he does seem to be quite self-centered and arrogant in the way these stories are written. I tend to feel more for all of the other members that are involved such as his family members and others. I think I say this mainly because the first half of the book didn't hit hard in terms of comedy or seeing David as a funny man. Most of the stories that were wrapped around him in the first half seemed rather dull and dumb to me. I get some of the jokes that he tries to make, but a lot of the stories seem more bizarre to me. Probably it's better to hear those stories in an audio book, but even then I don't think I found him as interesting as his family members like his father and the one called "The Rooster"

David does shine better in the second half of the book and his stories are a lot more interesting. Some of his ways of telling his story in a comedic fashion didn't seem as childish to me, but rather clever and witty compared to the first half. This is with the expectation of the two stories.

Overall I had mixed feelings of this book as the whole, but the stories I did enjoy were definitely some of the most interesting stories I read in non-fiction literature. I would only go back again to read a few essays, but not all of them. I would only read 5 out of 12 stories from the first half, while almost all of them in the second. If you were gonna buy this book, I suggest only reading the second half rather than the first, but as I stubborn reader I am, I need to read everything.

8 people found this helpful

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Vincent Van Crow

Favourite book

Reviewed in Canada on January 1, 2022

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One of my favourite books. I’ve bought several copies because I always end up loaning it out. So funny. I keep a copy in my guest room at all times and often my guest will take the book with them when they leave. Love David Sedaris. ❤️

abhishek kr

Really fun read.

Reviewed in India on September 5, 2023

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I never laughed so much in the foreword itself.

JBM

Excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2022

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Sedalia is a wonderful writer whose observations are so astute and well written. His experiences filtered through his thoughtfulness and honesty make his books so captivating. Something to really look forward to reading whenever I have a spare moment.

One person found this helpful

P

Very funny

Reviewed in Spain on December 19, 2021

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Great book

B

Ótima!

Reviewed in Brazil on August 9, 2020

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A entrega do Sebo Mosaico foi rápida e o vendedor atencioso. O livro é incrível, uma leitura muito divertida e que com certeza vale a pena.

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Me Talk Pretty One Day 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

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Browse More from David Sedaris

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Publishers Weekly

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About the Author

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David Sedaris

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