I thought I was over David Sedaris. I don't mean that I don't like him. I do. His essays are funny, but after a while they all seem to run together. He mines the same territory again and again -- stories of growing up with his dysfunctional, quirky, yet lovable family. Stories of himself as the odd and awkward kid growing up and trying to figure out how to live in this world.

I wasn’t going to buy Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim in print, but I saw the audio version, read by Sedaris himse More...

So. David Sedaris.
Well, let's be clear. Nobody with a funnybone can hate David Sedaris. And neither do I. But it has to be said - that last book ("Dress your family in corduroy and denim") was quite a disappointment. Judging by the number of people showing up for his readings here in San Francisco, and its lengthy sojourn on The New York Times bestseller list, it obviously did pretty well commercially. And, based on the enormous amount of accumulated goodwill from his earlier books, I don't beg More...

This book makes me laugh myself sick every time I read it. Blood Work and La Nuit of the Dead are put together so perfectly. Sedaris creates a series of misguided attempts at human connection that seem doomed to fail through selfishness or insecurity, but somehow don’t. Sedaris is so good at exposing the frailty of those emotional connections without ever doubting that they can still sustain our relationships. He makes me relate to even the most impossibly awkward and painful situations. Every t More...

Original post at Book Rhapsody.

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Intro

If you’ve been following this blog closely, you will realize that I picked this up right after finishing Me Talk Pretty One Day. I have this habit of fangirling over stuff that got me. A victim of this habit is Sedaris. Or maybe I am the victim? Either way, the fangirling usually doesn’t last. It rarely lasts.

Thus said, this is the last Sedaris book that I read. Why is that? First, I got caught up with other books. Second, his books aren’t always available More...

this is a book by david sedaris.
shrug.

i mean, what else am i supposed to say? it's not like he went out on a limb here and wrote a space opera or a bodice ripper. it's david sedaris. if you like him, you will probably like this one. if you don't, you probably won't.

this is not my favorite of his collections, but i laughed out loud three times, which i think is pretty good. i like laughter.


**one time, connor made david sedaris laugh. he has yet to write a story about this incident, but we are all More...

A collection of writings by David Sedaris.

Quite possibly the funniest book I've ever read.

(There's a little language and stuff, so I don't recommend reading it out loud to the kids. But I guarantee you will laugh out loud to anyone sitting near you. Which means don't read it on a crowded airplane.)

So, I got about 7% into the book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim before just not being able to listen to it anymore. It, quite literally, was making me sick to listen to it. The main characters are shallow, "broken," and... well, the stuff of sitcom characters. They're (to me) sick, but "normal" which was making my head explode. I suppose, in a way, you could say that the book was "dark humor," which is pretty hit or miss to me.

The family really could have been spawned for Married With C More...

What if you could write about whatever you wanted? What if no topics were off limits, no person's feelings or privacy taken into consideration, no personal flaws purposely left unmentioned in order to be protected from ridicule?

You would probably write exactly like David Sedaris.

To actually write like David Sedaris, however, you'd also have to be intelligent, impeccably attentive to details and most importantly - uncommonly funny. With that winning combination, Sedaris's unencumbered writing cre More...

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim delves further into the fascinating, hilarious, and otherwise utterly bizarre life of David Sedaris and his family. This collection of his essays is quite good--among my favorites of his--because throughout most of it, he manages to find a moving balance between the tragic and the comic.

Take, for instance, "The Ship Shape," about how his family almost bought a summer home, but ultimately lost out on the chance because of his father's fickleness with money More...

oh so hilarious...

"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered, but my mouth was too full to answer...as she closed the door and behind her and moved toward my bed, I began breaking the wax lips and candy necklaces pulled from pile no. 2. These were the second-best things I had received, and while it hurt to destroy them, it would have hurt evern more to give them away. I had just started to mutilate a miniature box of Red Hots when my mother pried them from my hands, accidentally finishing the More...

This is a funny book! It contains real life anecdotes experienced by the author in various stages of his life. I bought this book in LAX when I got stranded for a missed flight in Columbus in 2005. I remember that there was a funny anecdote about Christmas which made me laugh all by myself and I could relate to it because it was December and I was looking forward to going back home to Manila.

Never before have I read a national bestseller that mentions my very own elementary school in Raleigh, NC. Yikes!

This seems to be the book that people most point to when highlighting Sedaris' talent. Like his earlier works, it is a collection of essays (27 this time) with some of them having been previously presented in various publication.

As you have probably guessed from the title, this collection focuses primarily on the various members of his families. Funny tales include examinations of his brother's wedding and sharing the experience of his brother's first child being born. His mother is truly a gem, More...

The only thing more entertaining than reading one of David Sedaris's (sp;i've always had a hard time with the possessive apostrophe on 's' ending words)books is listening to one. I'm so picky about books on tape/cd/mp3/whatever. But Sedaris is great.
After the whole James Frey controversy I was doing some 'googling' and found some articles where folks were questioning Sedaris's authenticity too. This was sort of reassuring to me because I'm so jealous of his work. Not only is Sedaris full of awes More...

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a hilarious book about David Sedaris's life and family. It starts off when he was a young boy and he has to give up his Halloween candy to the neighbors. He then stuffed as much candy in his face as possible so he wouldn't have to share it. I knew right after this chapter that I was going to like this book. As you read further in the book you learn all about his family like his brother, Paul, the rooster. Different events occur in this book that tell yo More...

In preparation for writing this review, I read back over my review of Naked. I do this a lot: read things I've written. I joke with my spouse that my blog is my favorite blog. Everything in it is relevant to my life, and I relate to the author so well. It's a joke, but it's true.

So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I found myself nodding in agreement as I read through my review of Naked. I thought about just copying and pasting that review here, with a few modifications, but that seemed like More...

I love David Sedaris. I'm actually really glad that I'm reading his works somewhat sequentially. I read Naked first and then this. And yes, I will have to read Me Talk Pretty One Day out of order.

Naked is really about growing up. It's told almost in order of events that happened in his life. Dress Your Family is more about when he's older, and I think the stories are a little less funny and exaggerated, and more poignant. I'd probably have to read it again to say for sure. My favorites are the More...

I don't think I can even list all my favorite moments of this book - but two stand out the most, merely because of timing. one, his description of his brother's baby. i had the same reaction at the hospital on friday while meeting Grace Trinity Faith Jones (i don't think even that many religious names will save this child). two, his description of the need to touch people, not inappropriately but unwelcome, relates to a long drawn out discussion with my judge regarding sexually battery and moles More...

I didn't like this book. I got the audio book to listen to on one of my drives. I couldn't finish it. I heard good things about it...that it was hilarious and that David Sedaris is great...but I just couldn't get into it. I think I forced a laugh out once just to remember what it felt like to laugh. It didn't feel right so I stopped.

I don't ususally do audio books--I generally don't have the attention span to "just" listen to a story. But this week David's been keeping me company while I sort through years worth of former treasures and wishful thinking preparing for an upcoming move this spring. There was something poetic about him telling me about his past while I was sorting through mine. I definitely prefer the live recordings to the somewhat sterile "read by author" stuff, but Sedaris is funny no matter what. He kept me More...

Honestly, I tried to like this book. Maybe it's one of those that, at page 100, kicks everything glorious into overdrive, making you gleeful and giddy and full of delight at reading it. Maybe I should have read further and waited longer. But, you see, I only really started to read this because it seemed hip at the time to do so. I'm not too sure that I care enough about maintaining some form of imagined quasi-hipness to make myself sit through the rest of it. There. I'm admitting I didn't read t More...

Another find at the town "Transfer Station" (a.k.a. dump). Sedaris' pieces on NPR have always been fun.

Good, quick read but not as good as Me TAlk Pretty.

My first encounter with David Sedaris was the audio version of “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” my second was the reading and signing at Davis-Kidd Bookseller in Nashville of “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,” and my third was reading the latter. Of the three, hearing Sedaris himself intone his own work was the most enjoyable. His cadence and emphasis (“FIRE ISLAND”) are much the source of his humor.

Then again, reading “Dress Your Family” rather than hearing it strips out just enough of Sedaris More...

Another example of my favorite genre, the "Read by the Author" audio. This couldn't be read by someone else anyway, right? Would someone else perform a Bill Cosby comedy album? And David Sedaris started on NPR, right?

Well, the book was published first, so I suppose it could have been read by anybody. But it wasn't and I almost wish it had been. I'm thinking specifically about his rendering of his brother's voice. It might be dead-on accurate but it came off, at least for me, as a strained attem More...

It took me a while to get into this book. But the characters, all of them, began to grow on me about halfway through.

Writing about his family and his homosexuality honestly and openly with just enough humor to take the edge off, Sedaris has created an amusing read that occasionally offers some worthwhile insight into the "average" American family and all that implies.

I should add that this is not the type of book I usually read, nor do I generally gravitate towards David Sedaris' slightly force More...

I absolutely loved this book. I previously read another of David Sedaris' books, Naked, and loved it as well, so a good friend of mine lent me this book. If you have never heard of it, the book is simply a collection of stories from the author's life.
I love how Sedaris manages to turn a few, almost everyday situations into something so humorous and relatable. Although I've never been in exact situations as the ones in this book, I feel that I was still able to really connect with most of the s More...

I couldn't finish this book. I think I read about a third of it and then got fed up. Sedaris is a good writer, don't get me wrong. In fact, he's a very good writer. However, Corduroy and Denim is just a series of narcissistic vignettes. I don't enjoy that sort of thing. Keep your therapy private. I would've kept on reading if Sedaris was funny, but he isn't, despite his reputation for humor. How on earth is he supposed to be funny? I have fairly eclectic taste in humor (Woody Allen, Wodehouse, A More...

http://andalittlewine.blogspot.com/2012/06/dress-your-family-in-corduroy-and-den...

I recently finished the audiobook of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. It was a treat.

Sedaris' essays span his life, beginning with his childhood in North Carolina, through his college years and after, and into what the reader presumes is his present life living and writing in France. He is the center of all of his stories, and he spends most of his time examining his loneliness, his isolat More...

It was a re-introduction to reading. I suffer from a brain imbalance that has been both crippling and absolutely liberating. That 'ailment' has proved to be both a blessing and the proverbial curse. I only share this with you to put perspective on what I know to be true. Sedaris's going back and forth in time coupled with my own 'journal' entries solidify what is true. I do not think, nor process information linearly; I jump around and I look forward to re-reading what has been put down on pen t More...