Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002)

Nothing compared to his other books/works. It sucks that Sedaris has developed a fan base that he caters to by repackaging the same content over and over or refusing to give us more of what made us love him.

I like much of Sedaris's work but I could barely finish the first chapter of this book. Seems like he just submitted an old notebook to his publisher and they put it out there unchecked. Do not bother.

No where near as great as his other books. The excerpts aren't funny and some of them are depressing/make you uncomfortable. It's cool that he's willing to be open about the good and bad aspects of his life, but the diary format isn't enjoyable to read and it lacks the clever humor and good storytelling of his other writing.

i was hoping for witty levity but instead found myself feeling sad and concerned for the welfare of the author given his very risky behaviors re drugs and relationships. Very disappointing. My expectations based on his other more humorous works were way off. I was consoled by the knowledge that Sedaris went on to be successful and clearly survived his early adult years, seemingly in spite of himself.

If a six year old Girl Scout gave young David Sedaris too much change in a cookie buying transaction, he'd shove it in his pocket and scurry away before she realized her mistake. But he evolves from this selfish user in a tale of struggle to success.
The delight of these diaries comes from the thumbnail observations Sedaris so picturesquely records in a time capsule of down-and-out America. And I kept thinking, these are the people who elected Donald Trump. (well maybe not the gay ones.)

I found this book interesting because I have read all David's previous work. These journal entries are the core material for much of his short fiction and so it was like visiting an old friend. I am a writer myself and thus found it fascinating to see these short entries that were the nuggets of the work which has made him famous. I am amazed he survived his early adulthood and look forward to seeing him when he visits Toronto this fall.

Every book by David Sedaris is brilliant, this one is 415 pages , his largest. But it is a diary Just open up any page and get a short story that will makes you laugh, falling on the floor type laugh. It arrived yesterday, I just opened up the book in the middle.....He was in Minneapolis, reading at a gay bookstore, his mike was in the magazine section, he was surrounded with pictures of men in jock straps and men with ball gags....... it goes on a bit more, don't want ruin it.....He is a national treasure although he lives in England now, not France anymore I'm guessing.

I am a Sedaris fan from way back, and I enjoyed this book of diary entries immensely. It was fascinating to follow the progression of his life and career, as he grows and develops as both an adult and an artist. I did not want this book to end, and now I can't wait for Vol. II.

couldn't stand the boring random thoughts from these diary entries. I guess unedited diaries don't make any more interesting reading than unedited, uncompiled field notes of biologists, which I happen to be. I would not consider submitting stream of consciousness field notes or data sheets, nor would any journal consider publishing them. Interesting reading material needs to be condensed, organized, edited, proofed.

I am a huge fan of Sedaris' work. I have reread Naked, Barrel Fever and Me Talk Pretty dozens of times and still laugh out loud. I have seen David speak four times and have met him at book signings and he is always so entertaining. I just don't know what to make of these random diary entries. IRS like a literary version of VH1 behind the music and I just want to hear the songs.

Fabulous. I always find David Sedaris bringing us a wonderful, dry, sarcastic and intelligent humor. This book is exactly what he promised; it isn't meant to be a novel or a series of essays. It isn't read to discover insights into his life or mind. It is a wonderful collection of small diary entries that simply deliver on the ironies of daily life. The humor seeps through and as it progressed and I began to pick up on the subtle way that the humor emerges, I began laughing and really enjoying the book. Self-indulgent? Not at all. It truly has humor in it, but you need to relax into it, not expect it to pop out and hit you. If you aren't ready to relax and have some fun reading it, you'll probably miss the point. I loved it!

David Sedaris is a natural comedian. He can bring humor to any situation and this book is no different. It's definitely different than his other books but equally as funny. Be prepared to laugh. I read this book while on a flight and the man in seat next to me thought I was crazy grin all of the laughing.

A bit darker than Sedaris's other essays but the format is fresh, giving keen insight into the everyday dramas (big and small) that served as inspiration (or a backdrop) to his writing over the years.

Hands down, Sedaris is my favourite author of all time. I love this collection of diary entries. I enjoyed the stark honesty that takes years to actually happen in a real diary. I learned more about his life and the little things that happen that have evolved in to some of his best essays. If you read his books and essays over and over like I do, you will enjoy this collection!

Always am delighted & eager for anything he writes. His honesty & soul-bearing writing are relatable,addictive & a genuine pleasure. I am ordinarily a smirker & very rarely chuckle when I read but when I read Sedaris work I often laugh out loud - I mean belly laughs. And I remember some stories months after I have read them.

I've loved reading David Sedaris' previous books and hearing his stories on radio for years. I was even lucky enough to see him do a live reading, which left me in tears, it was so funny! Thus, I was eagerly anticipating the release of this book.

I was so disappointed. To say this (audio)book is horrible is a vast understatement. It honestly left me wondering if DS was locked into a contract to write another book with a publisher he he despises. Otherwise, I cannot fathom why he published this book or how such a truly awful book was published at all! It had to be on the basis of his name and reputation that this book was published -- certainly not the content.

Aside from the introduction, the book is entirely comprised of selected entries he had written in his diary within the years specified in the title. I was not expecting there to be a plot, and it's absence was not distracting for me. However, what was a distraction is that the stories seem to be randomly selected - as if someone had picked random page numbers and published whatever was on them. The vast majority of the stories are rambling, inane, or worse.

For example, here's my brief summary of one such entry:

- I told my dad that chicken parts are on sale at the supermarket for 39 cents. He laughed and said it's probably just wings, necks, and livers, and they aren't worth even that. He was right.

Yes, the book does provide some insight into harsh and depressing circumstances, drug fueled episodes, and other events in his life that shaped him into who he is today. I'm just not sure I wanted to peel the curtain back that far.

Over the course of the book, I watched Sedaris sharpen his skills at observing life--his and ours. I was reading the book in a busy waiting room and burst out laughing. I was sitting alone & didn't care . The book is hysterical & he even includes jokes that he hears. Such a fun read.

I've read all of David Sedaris' books and listen to the audiobooks during long car trips, so by now he is an old friend. This is of interest to people like me, who already know him- perhaps not the book to start off with. But packed with interesting insights. A great thing to read at bedtime, because the diary entries are short, and there is no connection, one entry to another.

In the preface, Sedaris states he hopes this is a book his readers can dip in and out of. I did just that, but only because I had "activities of daily living" to attend! Utterly addicting; can't wait for the next installment.

“I am a huge fan of David Sedaris and eagerly awaited the publication of his latest book, even marking my calendar on the publication date. I've read all his books and have even attended one of his readings. I'm telling you all this so you will know that I desperately wanted to love this book, to laugh out loud, like I have with his other books, but it isn't to be so. This book is front to back diary entries, with no explanations, funny antidotes or anything to charm the reader. Most people's diaries are only interesting to them and,unfortunately, this is the case with Mr. Sedaris' latest book.

If you are expecting a funny, charming and sometimes compelling read like what you've read from him in the past, you will be greatly disappointed.”

This book is an absolute delight. I would think you have to know David Sedaris' work first to really appreciate some of the backdrop. It is marvelous to watch his writing skills unfold and follow his development into the brilliant essayist he is. He finds humor in everything, and his diary entries are brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed these diaries and look forward to more. If you haven't read Sedaris before, read "me talk pretty someday" then dive in.

The first half (until he moves to NYC and meets Hugh) seems like Augusten Burroughs wrote it, as it's full of slightly-colorful anecdotes about his 20s and his very bohemian lifestyle (living in the poorest neighborhoods in any town, picking apples and refinishing furniture for a living, living pretty much hand to mouth, lots of drugs - was crystal even a thing in the 80s?, lots of drinking).

The reader finally gets the author we know and love in the second half. But there are huge gaps in the entries (yes, I realize that every day can't be a laugh riot full of colorful bon mots, but still), and there's no build-ups to a lot of things he does (suddenly he's on a book tour for a book that he's never mentioned writing, suddenly he's in France on a trip that he's never mentioned) and the parts about going to language school in Paris are particularly boring (the Japanese student wasn't good at conjugating verbs, the Italian student never showed up for class, the teacher was obviously bi-polar, nice one day, nasty the next), as you never get a sense of who they are.

The reader is left wondering whether he actually kept any diaries and whether this was all a set up for writing non-sequiturs about whatever was on his mind in the past year. A lot of the "entries" seem rather oddly written for something that one would have written in their daily diary - I'm guessing he massaged them a little to make them read better, but the fact that there are only about 3 entries about the "SantaLand Diaries" when you'd think that for a solid 6-12 months the thrill of being finally discovered as an author would fill each of his entries, leads the reader to scratch their head and think this is all a long con.

It may be just me, but I found both Andy Warhol's and Andy Cohen's diaries to be much more diarylike in their execution - so I find it strange that for someone who writes for a living, these diaries come off poorly written, edited and organized, while 2 people who are artists and entertainers wrote works that are much more enjoyable.

I compulsively read this book hoping to get to the laugh out loud parts. It never happened unlike his previous books. In fact the first half was downright depressing as he seemed to enjoy writing about all the demented-criminal types he met . I cannot recommend this book to anyone.

I will first admit to being a huge fan of David Sedaris. From his monologues on NPR, his hilarious published works, and live speaking engagements, I have been enjoying his work for years. This new book is obviously a bit of a departure, but in a fascinating way. Here, we get a sneak peek into the diaries Sedaris has dutifully kept for years. The entries bounce from funny and sad, to touching and bizarre. You can see here that Sedaris is truly an observer of humanity, and this is the foundation of his comic outlook. He is amazed by both the mundane and the madness that surrounds him – and captures it all with cutting wit. Even in dull moments, he can pick out something that is off, hilarious, or strange. It’s a fun read, but also for me, it’s a reminder to be present and awake as we travel through this world and observe. Something interesting is usually happening, if we only open our eyes and ears to capture it.

Like many others -- I am a Sedaris fan. This one (and the previous "Let's Explore Diabetes") were disappointing. This "Theft" is just plain boring (and narcissistic).
Hard to follow since no background is given as he enters entry after entry w/ names of people w/o explaining who they are. Sedaris thinks he justifies this by writing in the intro that the book is NOT intended to be read cover to cover, but for the reader to open to any page and read a few entries at a time.
I also think MUCH of his entries are "fictitious," i.e. totally made up or "embellished." Seems to me, if half the incidents in just the first 2 yrs of the diary were "accurate," David would have been dead long ago.
Narcissistic because, does David really think that 40 yrs of his diary entries are "worthy" and/or interesting enough to be published -- in 2 vols. -- at $28 a pop.
After 6 or 7 "hits," this book just seems like "filler." Maybe time to "retire," and/or stick to public performances.
Definitely NOT looking forward to Volume 2.

In his introduction to this selection from 25 years of diary entries, Sedaris notes that the purpose of keeping a diary is to find out who you are. He does that brilliantly in this collection, culled from what he estimates is 8 million (!) words in his diary. The entries cover the years 1977 - 2002 and record his struggles as a young adult through the first ten years of his career as a writer and humorist.

The entries are sometimes sad, often moving, and occasionally hilarious. Many of them are of strange things he's heard or seen in his travels or while working temporary jobs. The entries he includes in this book succeed in helping us discover who he really is. Surprisingly, this collection of diary entries really works as a memoir, telling us a lot about the author and his life without the usual narrative.

This is not a book that you should necessarily read from cover to cover but it is delightful to dip into for a page or two at a time. Recommended.

I bought David Sedaris's diaries because Ann Patchett said it was un-put-downable. I've read almost nothing of his past work, but, he is super popular here in Frederick, Maryland, regularly booked at the local theatre, The Weinberg Center.

All that leading up to this; David Sedaris's personal history is not familiar to me, so, the choppy, truncated nature of the entries left me wanting more context.

I understand from the diaries that he had a drinking problem. He stopped drinking. He lives with someone named Hugh. Not sure how they met, or decided to live together. In Paris, now. Or, London. Or, both and, well, New York, too? His sister is Amy Sedaris. He was very poor. Now, he's not. He's met a lot of crazy people. Pieces. It's all pieces.

So, pieces can be okay. It is fast. It is sometimes amusing. His observations are trenchant. My issue with it is that it is sometimes unkind; mean in the way of people who are holding on to a great deal of pain get funny-push-you-away-with-outrageousness-nasty --- and I, having been that color of cruel in my life, find it off-putting and upsetting and guilt-inducing.

Too, while the jacket and publicity sort of preps for this, calling him interesting because he doesn't dwell on his emotions but describes and observes the bizarre in the world, I rather prefer knowing about how people are feeling. I expect a diarist to dwell on the emotions, and, I think, maybe I don't so much trust those who evade and avoid. Perhaps, I wanted something he didn't mean to write or share, the previously untold, the stuff of late-night, alone with yourself, soul-speak, and this is not that. As someone mentioned, they didn't find "insight or growth or heart."

Yes. That.

It's apparent that DS has run out of fresh material, and while I'm sad as a reader of his earlier (finished) work, I'm more angry that he would sell the basis for stories we either already know, or that weren't enough to develop more thoroughly as essays. Sorry, but all he's released in years is an intro to a book he ostensibly wrote (Statues Playing Before Hercules), but which is a book of essays by other writers. I'm not getting ripped off twice for old material. Quit while you're ahead, Mr. Sedaris. And no, I'm not buying it.

If you ever thought it would be fun or interesting to read someone's diary, this book may change your mind. The first half is just not that interesting and it certainly isn't amusing. However, once he gets some money and they live in France, things do get interesting and he has a whole different take on things which is often funny. I upped my review from 2 to 3 based on the second half. For a David Sedaris fan you'll read it anyway.

Theft By Finding, David Sedaris
David Sedaris has compiled a book consisting of his diary entries from 1977 to 2002. This is the first volume. A second is to follow. In the past, I have appreciated his dry humor and enjoyed his poignant stories. This audio book, however, was beyond my ability to complete. Although he reads it well, in his deadpan manner, the subject matter and language is simply too low class and vulgar; the people he encounters and describes are simply all bottom feeders. Everyone is troubled, doped up, hostile and violent. He denigrates everyone on the basis of color, religion and sexual orientation. His portrayal of his life experiences in the first 2 ½ hours that I was able to listen to him was beyond what would be acceptable in polite company. I am not sure why he selected the particular incidents he did, perhaps for shock effect, but for me, it really fell flat. The content simply got too gross. Perhaps someone more open minded will enjoy it. Perhaps as the author gets more mature and more grounded, with a realistic direction for his life, his entries in the diaries will be more palatable, rather than a sample of a variety of trashy anecdotes which are unpleasant to learn about. For those faint of heart, stay clear.

Reading these diaries is like reading practice pieces for future essays by this author. It's also puzzling, because he starts out as a drifter, a drug user, and an unmotivated man who takes on low-end jobs and then leaves them, sometimes to return if nothing better comes along. The reader wonders how his life turned around. Luckily, this is a fast read and interesting enough to keep one engaged until the end, although he modestly suggests in a preface that one should just dip in at random. I think reading from start to finish gives a much clearer picture of his development. Sometimes important things are hardly mentioned, like the single sentence from 1981 announcing a new illness in gay men. Sometimes a lot of attention is paid to entrenched bigotry in blue collar workers. It's quite an eye opener, like the man who is constantly talking about p*ssy but won't let his daughters date until they're 16. I took off one star because he fails to tell us who most of these people are; we can figure out his coworkers and employers, but it's often not clear whether other people are friends, neighbors, classmates, or what. They're rarely described physically, so the reader just gets a bunch of names, some of them androgynous. As a fan of his writing, I'd recommend this book to all fans. For someone who hasn't yet encountered him, I'd start with one of his books of essays.

I'll start by saying I was only able to get through half of the book. David's writing style is engaging but the picture he paints with his diary excerpts is just sad. There are a few things that I think you need to know before reading the book. David Sedaris is giving selected excerpts of his life which for decades is that of a homosexual drug using man making one irrational and irresponsible choice after another. Also, this book is intended for older audiences as the language includes just about every curse in the English language multiple times over as well as a number of disturbing stories including sexual experiences, molestation, and a few other graphic details. So just be aware of that before you let your 12 year old pick it up.

I love-d Dave Sedaris and his work. I eagerly anticipated this book and was upset that I could not read it as soon as I found out about it. I had to wait for its release. Now...I wish I could return it. It is chock full of the "N" word. He mentions Jewish insults but seems less tolerant towards those than towards Black insults. It's full of people I don't like, including him sometimes. He speaks of his whole family listening to Black music. It makes you wonder how he jotted down the "N" word so freely and who taught him to accept its use if that's true. I am pushing through till the end because I am hoping for his redemption. Yet, I am already midway through the book. It still has not arrived. What has arrived is his pivotal moment (which I don't begrudge him because, well, DAMN...) What gets on my nerves the most is that I couldn't lose myself in his wit this time. I had to be reminded that there are still too many Americans who are racist, hateful, and ignorant, and whose preference is for nativism instead of brotherhood and unity. I had to adjust my view of the page to include skin color as more than character development. I had to breathe, allow room for artistic expression, and give CPR to my dwindling patience with the way Whites casually spout and accept racism in and from each other. It just seems to capitalize on the hate in our current climate. I wonder if David thought about how the seemingly backhanded racism in his new release would affect his nonwhite readers in America given our current political state...while he lives safely in London reaping profits. I know now that I can wait until it has been catalogued at the library to read his next book. How does one dance to a Black beat, sample Black meat, smile and act friendly while in front of a Black face, and then go home and write "N" words in ones diary without any indication of indignation at its use?? So, two stars, because he still amused me in between pricking my spirit...

David Sedaris is addicting. As someone who seldom drinks and doesn’t do drugs I find that my Jonesing manifests itself in odd ways, like needing something by Sedaris to take the edge off every now and then. Anything. Books, audios, PBS segments. This book has fulfilled my need. Sedaris, I guess, likes to jot notes. This book is a compilation of thoughts, observations and schemes that took place from 1997 to 2002.

There is no telling what you’ll find in his journaling. A woman in an eatery offered to share her French fries. Exciting? Not at all. Interesting? Indeed. Throughout the book you’ll find short flashes of his day to day life with no rhyme, reason or theme. On December 14, 2000, for example, you learn that he doesn’t have AIDS, that Al Gore conceded and his father likes to quote Rush Limbaugh. Connect those dots.

Imagine, if you will, the pressure of having to decide if a terrarium you may purchase with a $15 paycheck will be more suitable for hermit crabs or hamsters. Sedaris has vignettes about teaching, his family is oft mentioned (thank goodness) and he steps on a nail. There are hundreds of non-sequiturs that somehow are entertaining beyond belief. And the book is long. Over 500 pages of David’s off-beat humor that will keep you entertained for a long time to come.

I think that reading a diary of most people would be tedious beyond comprehension but this book is a page turner. The everyday sundry items that make up the life of David Sedaris are transformed into the bizarre when seen through his special and extraordinary perspective. I think the only other character that could write a book this entertaining would be the fictional Jerry Seinfeld from his apartment in NYC

This is the perfect Summer Read.

For those of us who have followed Sedaris's career by reading his books and attending his live performances, his Diaries offer a particularly intimate look at his evolution. At once hilarious and poignant, each entry, ranging from a few lines to a few pages, is a tiny window into David's complex past.

Whether living pay check to pay check or suffering at the hands of a bully, we see Sedaris hone his wry humor over the course of the book. His snack-sized observations of even the most dire events are punctuated by moments that will leave you laughing out loud. For example:

January 15, 1989
Raleigh

I will never again drink at a party I am hosting.
I will never again drink at a party I am hosting.
I will never again drink at a party I am hosting.

I drank at a party I was hosting. After four beers, I had three screwdrivers, then started taking bong hits. It was around then that things started spinning. I ate an apple yesterday, and a tiny sandwich. There were fifty people here. I tried to sit down and watch my guests dance, but the site of them made me nauseated so I stumbled into my office and collapsed.

~~

Theft by Finding is an emotional roller coaster that will leave Sedaris fans even more infatuated with this brilliant humorist.

The author as The Observer. His wry recounting of events bizarre and banal are more Zen than five Buddhist texts taken together. At first it annoys, but make the trek all the way up the mountain. Read to the end. The cume effect becomes strangely calming, like Zen. Sedaris is saying that the "perfect life" one is force-fed all around in media --TV/film/Internet/other -- does not exist. Instead, your life: "c'est normal, c'est normal" to steal a phrase from the book. Just as is everyone else's, no matter how aberrant, crushing or merely disappointing. Life is suffering, Buddha said. Sedaris seconds the motion, but conveys it is still worth the trip. He might have saved you, (and I, dear reader) many hours of counseling.

Others have faults, faceted like diamonds while Sedaris has foibles, and always the most interesting ones, beyond question and always the most hip you could order. I've been given two books and found others at thrift marts, while this is interesting to give clues to the development and to the demographic geography of the places he's visited and worked and lived. I skipped most of the European entries; not interested in those remarks.

Since Sedaris is never moved by anything he sees, bad or good it's only a man entertaining us by picking colored lint from his suit. There's no risk and no pleasure, either. If he did extreme avant garde art, it was only a phase of collecting cool things to say about himself, and ways to criticize others, remaining in a safe zone. I only care about that aspect because social media encourages each and all of us to do the same, locked in our successes as Sedaris might be and avoid all risk, joys and growth; all the while, replacing information delivery and exchange with All Hip-Marketing, where anything irrational becomes quickly possible, though blandly predictable.

At about halfway through this book I'd likely have given it four stars but the more I read the less I liked the author, his family and friends. The only character in the book that I have any sympathy for is Hugh, the author's boyfriend. How he puts up with Sedaris should have him nominated for sainthood. At one point the author recounts how he can't accompany his boyfriend and another friend on a trip because he has to stay home and feed the spiders he's suddenly become obsessed with.
There were a few diary entries that came across as touching but, maybe I'm a cynic, quite a bit of the book feels contrived like he decided he wanted to come across a certain way and went back and edited/added entries to make everyone less endearing. He succeeded. In the beginning he comes across as a quirky guy with a messed up family and by the end he's the guy I'd take a loss on a house sale to get away from. He isn't happy when he's poor and struggling. He's not happy when he's got money and can live wherever he wants. He feels guilty buying a bike in one country because he thinks he'll hurt his other bike's feelings. I'm just glad it's over.

The title of David Sedaris’ diaries is clever. He says in his introduction that if you find something of value in the U. K., you are required to file a report; otherwise, you may be guilty of theft by finding. In the early years of Sedaris’ diary keeping, he seems to have found a lot of money on the street and spent a lot of time in the IHOP in whatever city he was just getting by in. Since I have read only two of Sedaris’ books some years ago, NAKED and ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY, I am certainly no authority on this best-selling author. I assume though that he uses his dairies as fodder for his verbal cannons. (Surely there is one French teacher from hell who will never—if she knows it—let another writer into her class again.)

Some of these entries aren’t funny and border on the dull. (I was forewarned by the author, however, that I should just skip around in the book.) The problem with reading this diary is the problem with reading many diaries: most of us who have walked this earth are neither interesting or funny or sad every day of our lives. We are simply dull. (Christopher Isherwood, who wrote one of my favorite novels A SINGLE MAN also wrote voluminous diaries that are often tedious and dull.) Mr. Sedaris though can be terribly funny. One entry I keep smiling about is the one on October 31, 1994. Sedaris has gone to the welfare office in New York to do research for a new play. A Hispanic woman sneaks a friend in ahead of others in line with the pretense that her friend has asthma. A black woman behind them announces that her baby has asthma too. When she is asked where is her baby, she points to her stomach.

Mr. Sedaris apparently is obsessed with people with disabilities: the deaf, the blind, the disfigured, those with missing limbs. Since he and his family lived for a time in North Carolina, I suppose we can cut him some slack and let him sit under Flannery O’Connor’s shade tree since she opined that only Southern writers still recognize freaks when they see them. (I cannot conceive of this writer ever using the term “differently abled.”) Then there are those god-awful jokes that Sedaris keeps including in his entries.

The diaries are certainly worth reading (since we are allowed to skip although I didn’t) and are a pleasant escape from the daily news coming out of Washington. And they get more interesting as Sedaris progresses from hitching rides across the country, moving furniture, painting apartments and picking produce to living in France and dining out with the likes of Susan Sontag, James Ivory and James Merchant.

What is almost always absent from Sedaris’ diary entries is how he feels about what he is saying. For example, the December 14, 2000 entry begins: “Apparently I don’t have AIDS.” He goes on to say that he had always assumed he was infected until a recent blood test he had taken that was required in France to get a mortgage. And the entry about the death of his mother (November 14, 1991) is just as understated although moving: “Mom died last night, suddenly, of pneumonia brought on by her chemotherapy (If Sedaris had written previously about his mother diagnosis, this was one of the entries he had weeded out of the final selections.) “Amy called to tell me and now we’re all in Raleigh.” In the rest of the entry, Sedaris doesn’t reveal a lot about his feelings although he does say he is afraid to see his mother laid out in the funeral home and how strange it is to see all her things just as she left them. The entry on December 27, 1994 is certainly one of the few where the author reveals himself and one of the most moving. Sedaris’ dad has shown on Christmas day some old Super 8 home movies of the family as far back as 1972. “The moment we saw Mom, we forgot about our guests. . . I never knew my mother had been captured on film, moving. . . To see them both on an island, so young and happy. I couldn’t believe out luck: to have this on film!"

My friend who has read all of Mr. Sedaris was totally taken with these diaries. And after writing this little review, I find myself liking them more than previously.

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) by David Sedaris is very highly recommended collection of entries from his diaries.

This is an edited compilation selected by Sedaris of his diaries. "I’m including only a small fraction. An entirely different book from the same source material could make me appear nothing but evil, selfish, generous, or even, dare I say, sensitive. On any given day I am all these things and more: stupid, cheerful, misanthropic, cruel, narrow-minded, open, petty - the list goes on and on." A different edit would have changed the entire book. In fact, Sedaris started out planning to just share the funny diary entries when his editor suggested that he go back to the early entries and share things that weren't as funny. He did this and it changed the book, as he then decided to eliminate many of the funny entries. The result is a compelling collection that follows Sedaris's life from a struggling drug-abusing drop out to a celebrated humorous author.

For his diary entries Sedaris notes: "What I prefer recording at the end - or, more recently, at the start - of my day are remarkable events I have observed (fistfights, accidents, a shopper arriving with a full cart of groceries in the express lane), bits of overheard conversation, and startling things people have told me." The wonderful thing about these tidbits of observation is that they often capture societal opinions during current events of the times. For those of us who are around the same age, the entries pull you back to that time and what was happening then, as well as what you were doing.

Fans of Sedaris's writing will clearly see the inspiration for some of his stories. His wit and humor, along with the gifted way he has with words and descriptions, is here, and many will recognize the source material for some of his stories. But while he is often hilarious, he is also honest. There are many poignant revelations and emotional situations presented along with the expected funny remarks, stories, and observations.

Theft by Finding is not to be missed. The title of the book is based on a term used in the U.K. where, if you discover something of value and keep it, it is called "theft by finding." Sedaris's acute eye and ear for actions and dialogue is clearly evident as he recorded many events and conversations that he "found" or overheard, along with the more direct conversations and encounters he experienced.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Little, Brown and Company.

I love the humor of David Sedaris and this book does not disappoint. He finds the bizarre in the usual and has an inimitable ability to make others laugh. I read this book in two sittings and then a neat thing happened. David Sedaris was coming to speak in Fairbanks, Alaska as a guest of the Fairbanks Concert Association. I ran into the association's director and she was disappointed that this book hadn't arrived because they were going to use it as a door prize. I said 'not to worry' and donated my copy to this wonderful organization!

I bought this book because I have liked books by David Sedaris. I am really offended by the racist language in the book and by some of the references to gay and African Americans. I am Caucasian and do believe we need to avoid using language, while from old diaries, does perpetuate old images and makes them seem ok or even funny. The world cannot find peace when we continue old sexist, racist. homophobic language and images. This book remind me of the nature of our prejudices when I was a young man, but now, at age 79, it is painful to realize these words still appear in popular literature. Gary Evans

David Sedaris is often hilarious and I am always amazed at how observant he is. He can take the most mundane thing and turn it into something extraordinarily interesting. His HUGE collection of his personal diaries is exactly that. Great observations, funny incidents and thoughtful anecdotes. Not all of his entries are exciting, in fact, some are head scratchers, but it will make you believe he has left nothing out. This is not a book to be read in one sitting, but rather something you have by the bedside to pick up anytime.

He writes about 1978 and how, ‘you can never escape the Bee Gees’, 1983; a grotesquely disheveled looking woman who is a friend of his friend Faye shows up to use his clean phone, 1989; encountering a clever beggar in Chicago that is relentless in dogging David for money, 1997; David is reading a Tanya Tucker autobiography and he is amused at her referrals to the overuse of the phrase, “my new friend”; 2000; David laments about his possible attraction to laptops over handwriting; 2002; David is in Bagotierie and is obsessing about the numerous and eclectic types of insects that are swarming in his house before a guest arrives.

These sound like simple entries, but Sedaris has a way to incorporate then into simple short paragraphs that oddly make sense and are humorous, but bewildering as well. No matter how you read or take David Sedaris, you’ll find something funny, attractive, bizarre or purely interesting. His observations are that crisp.

With the release of Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002), David Sedaris has once again displayed his incredible genius as an observer of humanity, common animals and crawling creatures! To be able to read these sequential snippets of Sedaris during his evolutionary years was akin to having been given 'the keys to the kingdom' with Sedaris as my personal guide. David's fans have known all of his family members since Day One, along with the biting satire that he always kept readily available for his unique descriptions of them and events, but this was much more.

His 25-year collection of musings over a major swathe of his life held more than a few memories for me, as I had read many of the books that he had written during those years. But his diaries put those familiar events into perspectives that show his feelings to be evenly distributed over the time and space of his petty, daily life. He impressed me repeatedly with his reflections of sympathies for women and the insults and abuses of animal ignorance that they are constantly exposed to and forced to endure. He describes a complex a world with the benevolence of a Creator, the precision of an anthropologist and the passion of a Picasso.

Pictures of a person attempting to grow, learn, survive, overcome, just fit in, teach, create or simply standing tall occasionally come through in spurts and splashes throughout these notes that make you ponder 'how they even physically survived his scattered beginnings'. There is no doubt that his success has been hard won, fighting every step of the way. His words clearly demonstrate his growth over and over again. Parts of Sedaris’s charm come from the dimensions of his personality that remind me of other people that I have known in my own life that bring his stories home to me. This book is definitely David, warts and all, and I am already looking forward to its sequel.

Bob Magnant [magnantdotorg] is a fact-based novelist, who writes about politics, technology, public policy, globalization, Internet security and the US in the Middle East. He is the author of 'The Last Transition...' and has previously reviewed Sedaris’s 'When You Are Engulfed in Flames'.

I really enjoyed this, but I also love the off the cuff nature of diaries in general. I don't really understand certain negative reviews of this book. These are snippets from Sedaris' diary - there is no real storyline, tidy conclusion, or plot, really. He doesn't really present himself as super likeable all the time, either. Because it's a diary! Not an essay or novel! I loved reading his random observations and getting a taste of what his life was like during those years. One thing that wasn't surprising but still really struck me was how much abuse he went through by strangers because of being gay. Not surprising, especially given the time period and places (especially in North Carolina), but seeing how often he had (possibly still has) to deal with those kind of daily interactions and threat of violence is illuminating in the diary format. I probably would only recommend this to Sedaris fans... it's hard to see it outside of following his work for years and years.

"In the U.K., if you discover something of value and keep it, that's theft by finding."

I kept a diary for long periods in my life. So, I like to read diaries. I read Samuel Pepys' diary. It took me two years. I read it in bed so every night the last line I read was usually, "And so to bed."

I thought it would be great to read David Sedaris's diaries. I have read several books by Sedaris and I've heard him on the radio. The first book I read was on recommendation by a library staff person.

I was living in a teeny rural town where the police chief had his own untrained militia and was armed with ex-military weapons, including a Hummer. I heard the KKK left flyers on driveways. The local church was splitting because the denomination was not strongly anti-abortion and anti-gay and anti-anything else progressive liberal. I went to the library and asked for funny books to raise my spirits, and I was given Holidays on Ice.

It's no wonder funding to libraries has been on the cutting block under the current administration.

Consequently, I should have known what I was getting into when I requested Theft by Finding, excerpts from his 156 volume diary kept between 1977 and 2002.

I had no idea.

"What I prefer recording at the end...of my day are remarkable events I have observed.."

And he has observed some pretty strange events.

At times I thought, what did I get myself into? Other times I laughed out loud, but no way was I going to tell anyone what was so funny. It's embarrassing to laugh at something so incorrect.

And yet, I realized, Sedaris's stories were, well, pretty believable for all their bizarreness. I lived in Philadelphia and seen some pretty weird stuff myself. But that's another story.

Also, Sedaris has some pretty spot-on insights.

One of my favorites is from November 17, 1987, Chicago. The police had caught a man who had smashed windows and painted swastikas on Jewish businesses. He was a skinhead with tattoos, Sedaris writes,"which is strange, I think, because Jews in concentrations camps had shaved heads and tattoos. you'd think that anti-Semites would go for a different look."

His self-knowledge is also commendable. On January 26, 1999, in Paris, he is called a misogynist. "No," I corrected her, "I'm not a misogynist. I'm a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally."

Sedaris is thoughtful. On December 31, 1998, he wrote that his dad, visiting him in Paris, had the evening before leaned near a candle and set his hair on fire. He wrote, "This morning we went to buy him a hat." Such a good son. Helping Dad keep his dignity by covering up the scorched hair.

In his forward, Sederis suggests readers peruse the book, sampling here and there, now and then. Good luck with that. Frankly, it's hard to put down.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

I'm listening to the audiobook version of this which David Sedaris reads himself. It's the way I first encountered him in Santaland Diaries by chance oh so many years ago, and his voice as idiosyncratic as it is defines these stories in some ways. He does great imitations of some of the characters he meets in these diaries, and it lends a depth to the writing that may escape some readers of the print book.

In some ways I prefer these shorter observations to his recent stories. These diary entries of course contain some of the raw data (I do mean "raw") from which his work originates, and dispense with the craft of his later writing although they are very well-edited here. His acute and selective powers of observation on display here are the stuff of which his best work is made -- and for which he is now quite well-paid (No more visits to the phone company to pay overdue bills!!!).

Entering DS's world through his voice and words, I felt reminded and provoked to look up a little more, and see the absurd (and not just the dreadful). Yesterday, granted it was Halloween, as I exited my car in the driveway, I saw two schoolgirls on horseback riding up the road, one wearing a flourescent-colored native American headdress.

Surely DS would have a sardonic remark or two on the store's odd new ways of trying to connect readers to books (on screen above other reviews): People who like sports books give his book 4.1 stars; though people who like reference books only 3.8.

Clearly he has a niche butch crowd.

First, I want to say that Theft by Finding should not be the first work you read by David Sedaris. You need to know at least a little about him and his family to fully appreciate his diaries. Reading the diary of someone you know is usually going to be more interesting than reading the diary of someone you don’t know.

I felt like I was watching him grow as both a writer and a person in reading this diaries. His entries from the 1970s are brief, usually a paragraph or two and about doing drugs or being broke and trying to find work After he becomes a student at the Chicago Art Institute, the entries become longer and more insightful. By the 1990s, his entries are more like actual essays and the most humorous entries of the book.

It was fun reading the diary entries and recognizing the events that would eventually become stories in his books or one of his essays. For instance, he writes about using his Stadium Pal, which became a hilarious story that he read on David Letterman. I’m not sure if it was also published in a book or magazine.

Because the entries are short, ranging from just a paragraph to around three pages, this is an easy book to pick up when you just have a short time to read. He writes in the introduction that this book, “Seems like the sort of thing you might dip in and out of, like someone else’s yearbook or a collection of jokes.” I found it to be a great book to take to the pool because I’m interrupted what seems like every two seconds by my kids wanting me to watch some trick they can do in the water. (“Watch me Mommy, watch me. Mommy, WATCH ME!) However, it was interesting enough to me that when I read it at night before bed, I had a hard time putting it down.

I can’t imagine that a fan of David’s wouldn’t love reading this book to gain more insight into his mind and learn more about his life beyond his humorous essays and books. I know I did.

An excellent, well edited and executed presentation of David Sedaris’ personal diaries. It is exactly what you would consider it to be, and that is really my only problem with the book as a whole. I have read many artists’ journals in my life as a reader, and some have really blown me away (Sartre, Camus), while others have been pretty flat. Sedaris’ seems to land somewhere in the middle, as it is a simple collection of snippets and anecdotes, some of which resonate better than others… I am sure many more didn’t make the cut. Some of them were incredibly touching and illuminating (I especially loved every appearance of the late David Rackoff as if he were alive and breathing on the page through the eyes of someone intimate with him as a person – something I always wish I could have done), while others were downright hilarious in a classic Sedarissian manner (similar to the Rackoff element, every interaction with his siblings offers a similar glimpse into a private life just as funny as one would expect). Still, there are many more entries that just passed as a slice of this man’s life. Considering form and function, it is what it is, and doesn’t breathe the same energy and momentum as his normal stuff does. It isn’t supposed to, so in this case it manages to stand perfectly fine on its own as a book one can pick up and put down at random intervals and pick out little illuminated passages from the past forty years of a great man’s life. Perfect for the toilet.

…I only included that last line because he’d love it.

I am a big David Sedaris fan. I enjoy his blend of wry humor and poignant observations and I look forward to any new publications. What struck me the most about Theft by Finding was Sedaris's ability to find something of note in everything he comes across. Theft by Finding is truly a diary, often a mundane accounting of the details of his days. However, Sedaris has so many beguiling experiences which he then translates into entertaining paragraphs that it leaves me wondering if my life is all that boring by contrast or does he just know how to make an interesting life out of the ordinary?
The book details Sedaris's life year by year from 1977 through 2002. That means the reader is taken along on a trip that starts in obscurity and pennilessness and ends in NPR interviews and trips to Paris. Sedaris's narrative voice is heard loudly and clearly all along, a familiar friend, with a life to share. Sometimes the entries were confusing to me, somewhat like personal diary entries can be to an outsider. I couldn't always figure out exactly who was being referenced in some passages and sometimes I was left hanging, wanting to know the outcome of the story that began in one entry but had no follow up in later entries. I think the key here is to take the passages as brief glimpses and not the whole story. Be happy for insights but don't expect a complete narrative.
I read the hard copy of Theft by Finding but really? Really, it was as if I were listening to the audio version. Sedaris's voice is so distinctive and woven so well into the written material that I could hear him reading the manuscript and entertaining by voice. Although I thought these short diary entries were engaging and revealing in their own way, my personal preference is for the longer , more developed essays that are found in other David Sedaris collections. I got to attend a reading of his in May, 2017, and he mentioned a new essay collection that will come out at the end of 2017. I can't wait.

Ever wanted to take a peek inside someone's diary?
How about a whole volume of diaries belonging to David Sedaris?

The term “theft by finding” is an actual offense in Britain. It is equivalent to keeping something you may have found, presumably something of value that goes unreported.

It's a clever title for this first collection of Sedaris’s diaries. In them he has written about people and events he has stumbled upon during his everyday life. He has “kept” these accounts as his own for future reference in the course of his writing career.

It is interesting to note how the writing of these diaries has evolved over the years.
As with most endeavors, practice makes perfect, and Sedaris’s writing does become more refined as time goes on.

Some of my favorite entries were those that took place around the time of 9/11.
The unfolding of events through his eyes is a departure from his usual good-natured humor. His thoughts and emotions reflect those of most of us during that time, yet they are unique to Sedaris.

Perusing this volume was entertaining, though much of it was mundane. Such is the nature of a diary.

Sedaris’s second volume will probably be of more interest to me, assuming it will contain better writing about more recent events.

Usually I like to stay out of other people's business and I'd never consider reading someone's diary....until it's a published book. This was hilarious, there's an entry date for my birthday, David Sedaris got hit in the nose in New York in the day I was born. Anyways, it was so funny at some points I found myself laughing so hard I couldn't breath. The comment of suing Farrah Fawcett for invasion of privacy reminds me so much of some celebrities today and how they are constantly in our faces. Sure Chrissy is great but does huffpost need to make an article for every tweet she writes? Do I really need to know every time Kim Kardashian uses the bathroom? No. It's spot on and seeing something written in the 70s relating was really neat. I love how it's honest, drugs make you a horrible person and there were some points I got so made because of the consequences drugs had, but he didn't hide those incidents. I'm sure he doesn't take blame for some drunk guy climbing into bed wth a kid and I don't know the whole story but the comments in there in passing and makes me see him different. He isn't just an author but someone who went through a lot saw a lot and decided to share it. This book was also a nice look it how women are so often treated. It amazed me the number of people he know who beat on their significant other and it's all there for men to read to maybe understand. Now the ending slowly started going down hill with the longer passages getting slightly more boring but still was fun to read. If you like David Sedaris other works or just like quirky real life stories about a man growing up, this is a good pick. I wonder what it's like on audiobook!

David Sedaris's new book, Theft by Finding, is perfectly described by its subtitle: Diaries 1977-2002. As Sedaris explains in the introduction, he's kept lots of notebooks over the years, and he always imagined that one day he'd publish them. This book is an edited version of those notebooks, with the years 2003-Present to be published in the near future.

For anyone familiar with Sedaris's career, these diaries paint an interesting story, starting from his years as a lost youth and ending around the time he began to emerge as a successful writer. His career path, however, is mostly the background. The subject matter and style of the entries vary widely, but mostly they consist of funny stories or observations that he makes each day.

For anyone *not* familiar with Sedaris, this might be a tougher book to digest. Knowing where he's ended up, I find it interesting to see how he has gotten there, but, really, there's little else to compel a reader to continue onto the next page. Frankly, his best work can be found elsewhere, so this diary collection is not something I'd give to someone who's not already a Sedaris fan. Still, I still found it to be an enjoyable read, and it's something that can be easily read a few pages at a time over a long period.

I read "Theft by Finding" over the past 5 hours or so. It's not that I'm such a fast or facile reader but I found his brief, wry entries of his life growing up over two and a half decades in Raleigh/Chicago/New York/Paris to be a clear, understated, and often heartbreaking critique of American culture as opportunities and incomes began to diverge so dramatically. He denies any such intent in his introduction, where he expressly eschews any interest in broad campaigns for social justice. Rather, his goal is the writer's goal -- to "find out who you are and to be true to that person." He does this quite simply, by observing life from the back booth of his favorite IHOP or McDonald's and listening and reacting and recording to the everyday around him. The short daily vignettes are often brief conversations Sedaris overhears, or strange events that seem to seek him out. But at least to me, the context was far more interesting. After only a few pages, I (badly) wanted to understand how he had survived at all -- a young, unprepossessing, homosexual living on his own and utterly unequipped with any skill or trade to survive in poverty-stricken areas of Chicago. The homophobia, racism and sexism in the poor neighborhoods of Chicago where he could afford rents are described matter-of-factly, and are more heartbreaking for their ordinariness. At the same time, his alcoholism and drug use seem to be limited only by his inability to afford either alcohol or drugs and his almost entirely anonymous sexual liaisons are described without any joy and only the tiniest smidgen of desire. What I wanted to know (badly and quite early on) was what reserves of strength he had to draw on to move, as he does from the Chicago South Side where, in his words at a low point (Sedaris is not a whiner) "people are basically stupid, cruel and violent," to the Sedaris on NPR and the Times best seller lists. Sedaris spends almost no time describing his craft -- his writing, and his articles and readings and plays seem to come from nowhere, fully formed. But somewhere, amidst all of the drug use and self-destruction, he must have somehow carved out and commanded an astonishing discipline to write. We learn in a sentence or two (following episodes of particularly demeaning bullying because of his size, demeanor and sexual orientation) that he's published a story or won a literary prize, but the vignette will describe (often exclusively) whether he can pay his overdue electric bill. One might be tempted to think that his family is his bulwark, and his sister Amy Sedaris in described with great affection. His Dad, though, seems to spend every family moment undermining his children's self-esteem and his Mom (described as funny and engaging, although we're given no evidence of it) died fairly early on from lung cancer. My take is that he did it almost entirely on his own, by nurturing some special sense of the absurd, the patience to look carefully at the (frequent) cruelties and (occasional) grace in the world around him, and the deep understanding that he possessed the talent to put that sense into words. The only other reasonable conclusion is that he is, indeed, an elf.

Have you ever taken a drawing class? The one where a model changes its position every thirty seconds or less? Well, the resulting collection of rough yet full of life sketches is the best description I can come up with for this book. David makes you feel the immediacy of being there with him, where ever he is. That is a truly amazing gift.

I should warn potential readers that at first, these vignettes of his early life, way before he became famous, were too short and disjointed. I was worried that it will not be a book that I would finish all in one go, but something that I would whip out occasionally for short bursts of entertainment. But it got better. The snippets turned into short stories and I've enjoyed them tremendously. Thank you, David!

I was surprised by some of the lukewarm ratings for Theft by Finding which draw comparisons between this and Sedaris’ other books. In case the title wasn't clear enough, this is literally a series of dated diary entries. I could see where on the written page this book could strike some as uninspired or pedestrian. But before you write it off, try the audiobook - it is fantastic. There is no substitute for hearing these anecdotes in the voice of the author. Sedaris’ unique style of narration, which we all came to know and love in The Santaland Diaries, breathes life, dimension, passion and humor into these entries. I would argue that a book in this style delivers more insight into the author’s life and psyche than most memoirs or autobiographies ever reveal. Theft By Finding is also a rare glimpse at the often long and difficult road to success. It's inspiring to follow the journey from broke and lonely day-laborer riddled with self-doubt to best-selling author jet-setting around the globe with his life partner to read for adoring fans. Sure, he may not have entirely conquered self-doubt, but that's David Sedaris. And I love him for it.

One of my treasures is a signed copy of David Sedaris’ NAKED, which was signed at a reading at the since-closed Outwrite Books in Atlanta, where he wrote I CAN SEE YOU NAKED as an inscription. Even before that, with BARRELL FEVER Sedaris was becoming a humorist for our times, alternating between a winsome nostalgia and biting satire. A gleeful political incorrectness runs through Sedaris’ writing, a happy fact that his liberal fan base has thus far ignored. THEFT BY FINDING, as every fan knows by now, is not a collection of essays or stories, but his journal entries from 1977-2002 (a second volume is planned). Some years are brief, some are excruciatingly long. There are hints at the origins of some of his more popular stories, but no mention of most of them. (No trip to the nudist colony unfortunately.) If you are not a Sedaris fan do not start here, but if you are you’ll have a good time.

In a non-fiction writing class at NYU, we were "workshopping" each other's writing by saying one positive thing, and one suggestion for improvement. One fellow student said she couldn't find anything positive about my article. When the instructor pressed her, she said it reminded her of David Sedaris' writing. How bad could my article be if it reminded her of David Sedaris, I wondered? He's published, right? And a best-selling author.

I decided then that one day I'd read some of his work. When these diaries came along, here was an opportunity. So, I'm critiquing this as someone who has never read any of his previous books before. I started at the beginning of his diaries, and marveled at his unconventional life. How does a best-selling author rise out of the ashes of this experience?

You have to be a serious Sedaris fan to plow straight through these diaries chronologically. I read for awhile straight through, then decided to dip in later in his life. I loved the description of his French classes in France. I would agree with anyone who says if you have never read Sedaris before, it's probably better to start with one of his shorter works.

But if you enjoy his writing genius, you will find his evolution as a person and writer pretty fascinating. Or, if you are fascinated by a writer's life, then you may enjoy these diaries to see his development. Perhaps one day PhD theses will be based on these diaries. Or perhaps not.

It's up to the reader to glean what's useful and entertaining from these. You have the sense that Sedaris didn't leave much out. There is no whitewashing going on here. There's a lot to sort through here. An embarrassment of riches kind of thing. And another volume is in the works.
I enjoyed seeing how Sedaris' mind works as evidenced in these diaries.

David Sedaris used his diaries to craft his hilarious essays. Reading the diary is almost like eating the individual recipe ingredients of a dish we've already enjoyed. The struggles of the early years of the diary make decent reading, but as Sedaris gets famous there's a shift to crotchety whining about service people, airlines, pigeons entering his Paris apartment. In one entry he writes, "For me, it's ironic that, on a certain level, all my nineteen-year-old fantasies have come true. All I do is travel from one place to the next, staring out hotel windows."

This is an interesting insight into the brain meanderings of David Sedaris. If you are a fan of Sedaris' work, then you will enjoy these diary entries and will recognize many familiar events and themes, such as SantaLand and French class. Sedaris writes in the prologue that this is not necessarily meant to be read cover to cover, and I would agree. Most interesting to me are the references to specific events, as these are moments that I, too, remember, and I liked reading Sedaris' take on these shared moments. I found his entries after 9/11 to be very engaging, and I also enjoyed reading his thoughts on specific places he visited during his book tours. Also, he talks about his family at length, and this adds insight into many of his essays. All in all, this is a nice addendum to Sedaris' other works. I enjoyed reading it.

This selection from David Sedaris' diaries starts a little roughly, with early entries that are undistinguished enough that you can see why he excerpted them sparingly. But once the entries became richer, more like dress rehearsals for his stories, a rhythm builds up. Sedaris recommends skimming off and on as the mood takes you, but I was fine to read straight through. It's not as rich and hilarious an experience as his stories, obviously, and there's no real effort to create a context for the life history one gets glimpses of. But there are some truly hilarious passages, and nice glimpses of the eccentricities of his siblings, especially Amy. If you like reading witty, scattershot diary entries, or are a Sedaris diehard, this is for you.

I’ll preface this by saying I’m a big David Sedaris fan. I’ve read all of his books and have really enjoyed them all. Theft by Finding is a different approach to writing. Instead of the usual essay format, these are diary entries David has made throughout his life.

Personally, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as his other books. When reading his entries during his druggie years, I found I didn’t actually want to read his antics in detail. To me, it’s just not something I found interesting. Also, some entries are quite short. I found that I enjoy the longer essay version of his writing.

Since I’m a fan of his other works, I think I may have stuck with this longer than someone who is a new reader. I wouldn’t recommend making this the first book of his that you read. The book just didn’t hold my interest and I found that I was having to make myself pick it up and read it instead of being unable to put it down.

*I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I have loved David Sedaris since meeting him back early in his career in Chicago when his first book, BARREL FEVER, had just come out. He had a small crowd at the Unabridged Bookstore and so I was able to chat with him afterwards and he even signed my copy with "Boo! You can use that." I'm a horror writer. The interesting thing about this all was that a year or two later, when his second book came out, he did another appearance at the same bookstore and it was mobbed--couldn't even get in the door, let alone get a seat. Anyway, personal anecdotes aside, I love these diaries because they demonstrate his journey not only as a writer and humorist (and, as with most comedy, how it can emerge from some very dark places), but also chronicles his growth as a human being. This is a book I'll treasure and dip into again and again at various points, kind of like the bible. Praise be to David Sedaris!

I read this book over the Labor Day weekend. I was enthralled. His journey is incredible. I kept saying to myself, "He's lucky to be alive." He's definitely someone that I look up to as a writer. The people, and the way he describes them, that he has encountered throughout his life kept me turning the page. I'd say, "One more entry and then I'll go to bed," but then I'd read the rest of that year. The death of Neal hit me hard as I am a cat lover. But his relationship with her was great to experience. I loved the stories about Amy and his brother Paul, and would be saddened each time he mentioned Tiffany. Seriously, this was fantastic. I read some negative reviews on here and I don't understand it. If you like every other book that David's written, you will most likely like this book. I did. I just wonder if anyone has emailed him with a sentence that contains the title of this book.

I consider myself a big fan of David Sedaris, and listened to the Audible version instead or absorbing the visual written, so keep that in mind while reading this review.

It was interesting to witness his growth as a writer, humorist, and a person through these edited diary entries. But because it was a running work in progress, the first two thirds of the book fought to hold my attention. I did enjoy it, but it just lagged a little. His jokes weren’t as quirky. His wit didn’t hold the same surprisingly razor preciseness that I love so much about his work. I seriously could not stop laughing.

The last third more than compensated for the previous two. His hilarious nostalgic tidbits were well worth the wait.

I have enjoyed David Sedaris' previous books, and have seen him twice in person doing his readings. I love him! When I first started this book, I wasn't immediately enthralled, but as I read on, I liked it more and more. You get to "know" him a bit better by the things he puts into his diaries. Plus, I am impressed how very hard he studied French to assimilate while he was living in France. And I was very touched by the things he wrote about his mother. One of his entries read something like: I really do love my mother very much. Very moving. I am looking forward to the next installment when he publishes his diaries from 2003- to date. There is no one else quite like David Sedaris, and I always look forward to reading whatever he publishes. David, I wish you and Hugh every happiness.

June 16, 2017
Rochester Hills
Ah,the power of David Sedaris. I was reading this book on the beach minding my old-lady business when I was startled by sand being kicked at me. I looked up to see a young girl, maybe 9 or 10, with the nastiest look on her defiant little face, so I knew the hit was intentional. She scampered off before I could verbalize anything. Shortly after, as I was leaving the beach, I spotted Sweetums on the volleyball sand with other kids. As I breezed by her, I had a paper cup in my hand with just a little bit of melted ice in it, to discard, and I did--right on Buttercup's little back. As she looked up at me--startled--I thought to myself: "How's that for stranger-danger, little B?"

but it was. It's an entertaining read, mostly a bunch of brief notes he took daily of odd things he noticed that day. Some are about things that happened to him and some are just weird things he overheard people say while he was for example kicking back at IHOP. Also there are a lot of weird things people said to him directly. A running theme seems to be that lot of these overheard conversations are so off the wall, sometimes funny, sometimes messed up, he doesn't even need to add his own commentary to make it interesting. He just documents what happened and the moments stand on their own.

I like to think that if I were as an accomplished diarist as Sedaris, I too would release my diaries. But first, I should have written them. A long look into someone else's life is always fascinating to me, much like a type of voyeurism, but socially acceptable. I find I have much to relate to in Sedaris' diaries. Not all of it of course, but enough that I can empathize with his conflicts with family, money problems, self doubt and small successes. I enjoy that he can see the funny sides of absurd situations, perhaps faster than I ever can. It makes one's life lighter. Laughing at the absurdities of one's life makes everything more bearable.

I love David Sedaris books, but have to say that I prefer his essays to the diary excerpts. I suppose they are mini-essays, especially when you read through a few related days. There were lots of laugh out loud moments and also many sad ones. It was fun to pick up the book and read for a few minutes or an hour, but I missed the longer essay format. I liked it, but I love "Me Talk Pretty One Day".

I've been hooked on Sedaris' books for many years so it's hard for me to tell if this edited collection of diary entries would hold much attraction for newcomers. I think it would as his wry observations and laugh-out-loud humor are still intertwined with pensive musings and vulnerabilities. The real gift though is to Sedaris fans since many of the entries will resonate for those who are at least moderately familiar with Sedaris' writing and the progression of his career and life over time. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and when I had the opportunity to see David Sedaris in person at a local reading, this is the one I chose to have him autograph.

As a great fan of Sedaris' books it was a real pleasure to find some of the origins of his stories in his diaries. Also, Sedaris' droll wit comes through with greater clarity when he reads his works aloud. I loved his books on first read but enjoy them even more when he narrates. The diaries, like his books, improve as he ages. It is a relief when the alcohol and drug fueled naval gazing gives over to the more mature self-awareness and world view.

I spent several hours in recent days listening to David Sedaris read excerpts from his diaries as assembled in his new book titled, Theft by Finding. This book is a curated sample of the writer’s voluminous diaries from 1977-2002. Had I read the book I would have followed Sedaris’ advice, and just sampled around here and there. I chose to listen to the audiobook, because hearing the entries in the voice of David Sedaris made them more interesting and more entertaining. Fans of Sedaris are those readers most likely to enjoy reading or listening to this book.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

I'm a big Sedaris fan. Have all his books. Attend his public readings. Love him. So not liking this book is a first for me. What becomes clear very early on here is that there is a wealth of difference between writing short diary excerpts of the mundane facts of one's day, and the fashioning of those notes into a compelling and funny narrative organized thoughtfully for the intent of being enjoyed by a reader. All of his books up until now were of the latter format, this book however is nothing but the former, and it makes me sad to report that it is dull, dry, and depressing reading. I bought the audio cd thinking it would be more interesting to hear the character's come to life through his impersonations, but honestly, it didn't help much. I gave up after CD 4 and maybe some day I will go back and give it another try. What's missing is anything like a storyline, a point of view and wit. There's no attempt to help the reader/listener understand what's happening at any moment. Some of the entries are so mundane, I just can't fathom how they even made it past an editor's eye - things like recipes for Spinach Pasta, or laundry lists of presents he received for Christmas. Why do we care about this? One entry will begin with something like, "It's the night before the play...." but up until that point there's been no mention of a play whatsoever, so you're left wondering what in the world he is talking about. This happens often and continually. If this is the first Sedaris book you've considered reading, I'd suggest you start with any of the others first. Maybe one day he could reissue the book with funny annotations giving it more clarity and interest for the reader by providing more interesting notes about the circumstances at the time or the people. It's interesting to know that he did drugs, hitch-hiked across the US, picked fruit and did other odd jobs, and ate every single evening at The International House of Pancakes, but it isn't remotely close to being interesting reading.

This was a great summer read.

I enjoyed the audio version, while I went on road trips and mowed my yard, so it was like I was hanging out with Sedaris the whole time!

This was a poignant glimpse into Sedaris' lie, very serious and real compared to his comedic writing, but I so appreciated going on the journey of the evolution of this man and how he survived, thrived and kicked some a$$ in the process.

Watching him find himself through his own words felt like I was being told a secret and I felt like a guest of honor in his life. A great book.

Any fan of David Sedaris is bound to love this perusal through selected segments of 25 years of diary entries. Granted, this is David Sedaris we are talking about. It's a given he's in the rare category of writer who can published random bits of thousands of pages of journal entries and have fans scramble to read (or in my case hear) every word. Some of the earlier entries show his voice and observation skills in development, and then some of the later entries read as extensions to his already published work. He goes on at length at those French lessons!

Redundant. I went to hear him speak while on Nantucket and it is clear that his daily life is happy but dull. He spends every day walking for hours daily skewering litter and getting 13 miles of steps in (talks way too long about his FitBit) and none of makes for entertaining material. I hope his best writing days are not over, but from hearing him speak, I'm afraid painfully boring life reveals even more boring stories - both spoken and written.

There are many amusing diary entries included in this book, particularly ones halfway through, after he met his life partner Hugh and after he became a published author. Before those life-changing events we're subjected to many curated entries that show Sedaris's seeming titillation in women being abused and black people being called ugly slurs, or rather, one ugly slur in particular. There is no informational or educational value in these entries, and their inclusion is made more disturbing by the fact that not all of Sedaris' diary entries are included. In other words, he thought these ones were worthy of inclusion, for some reason. Possibly all these years later he's still titillated by that slur and domestic abuse against women and he's counting on his readers to delight in these entries as he does. They mar a book that otherwise, while being self-indulgent and unnecessary, is still entertaining and illuminating, if only slightly so.

David Sedaris’s diaries are a joy to read, especially as they progress. The first two decades are shockingly chock full of drugs, wanderlust, and struggling finances, which make his rise to fame seem improbable. The last decade or so covered in the book is at times riotously hilarious, thoughtful, and touching. As always, he has quite a way with words and analogies, and the diaries offered a rare peek into his view of the world that shines through even more than in his short stories. Recommended for anyone who has enjoyed his stories and his readings.

If you are a David Sedaris fan, this is a no brainer buy. I was thrilled to receive it and was looking forward to reading it in bits and pieces as it was a diary vs a book of stories, boy was I wrong. It is hilarious as usual and I ended up reading it in 3 days. Amazing when you think it is over 500 pages long. I loved that you can tie his diary posts with the books he has published and by reading it you fall in love with him and family all over again. I loved that you got to know his brother Paul a little better and also his father.
I think it was even funnier for me to read because even when he is just jotting down diary notes he can't help but being hilarious.
Loved it, already rereading it and cant wait until the next diary series comes out.
I will add, that if you are not a fan or haven't read any Sedaris in the past, this is probably not the book to start with.
Thanks David for always,, always making me laugh!

I am not going to preface this by saying that ordinarily I love David Sedaris books. It is irrelevant anyway. This particular book is the laziest book I have ever read in my life. Wouldn't all authors like to dredge up their old diaries and pass them off to the public as great literary works? This book should be retitled Theft by Selling.

Not to be an incessant plug but every morning I drink coffee on the porch and listen to the audio version of this book for a few minutes of Pure Bliss. Listen to Sedaris read all 13 hours himself definitely gives it an extra je ne sais quoi for extra charm and personality. We finally get a reveal behind the mystery of what is truthful and fabricated with Sedaris and come to the conclusion that it's all somewhere in between.

I've enjoyed his previous collections of essays but this one is pretty uneven. It may be because his life has been pretty uneven, as have most of ours, but I found the first third of the book pretty tedious. It did pick up as he became more successful and traveled more interesting places but overall pretty uneven. But yes, there are enough of his "luster nuggets" in there that I will probably read the sequel.

I have listened to David Sedaris on NPR for years. I have read a few of his books and enjoyed them. The thing about this book is it shows the evolution of him as a person and a writer/artist. It has many very funny, laugh out loud moments and some terrific stories involving his sister, Amy Sedaris. What a pistol! If you are seeking humor to keep you from giving in to the despair of the current endless, soul sucking bad news then this is your good read.

Unrelentingly raw and bleak. I kinda want to give it a lower rating but I like almost everything that Sedaris has written. I also agree that good writing does not have to be pleasant I could only take it in short chunks as I found myself wanting to jump off a bridge or drive into oncoming traffic. It is kind of amazing that he has made it pretty big after going through all the stuff in these diaries; so in that respect it is a success story.

Listened to it during a few long drives and had many chuckles and a few laugh out loud moments. I've read/listened to most of his books and always enjoy them. Whenever his sister Amy Sedaris is mentioned you know it's going to be funny. A few of the other reviews mentioned that just printing notes from your old diaries is practically cheating, but David Sedaris' diaries are full of little character sketches and overheard conversations that are evocative and entertaining. I'll read/listen to anything he wants to share.

I must have seemed crazy all those times I laugh-cried while reading this book, but this was that good. I loved the format, which is snippets of journal entries spanning 25 years. Some are paragraphs long and have the completeness of a short story while others are only a few lines, though no less satisfying. This is a brilliant mix of absurd, sad, and insightful. All are pretty hilarious. It has even changed the way I journal and made me adore David Sedaris more than before.

It doesn't get interesting until Sedaris moves to New York in 1990. Before that, his diary entries are short and repetitive. His life is almost relentlessly squalid and his entries short and unfunny. The things he chooses to write about in his diary from 1977 to 1990 are so mundane for the most part as to be tedious and sometimes downright sad.

I approached this with some trepidation... 500 pages of diaries? And this is only Volume 1, through 2002. A second volume is promised (threatened?) to bring it up to date. But it turned out to be compulsively readable after all, and often had me bursting out in laughter, to the puzzlement of my husband, who is eager to get to read it to see what was so funny. Sedaris's strong point is in the deadpan description of some quirky event. He's the master of the short (and short-short) item. Did these things all actually happen? Well, who cares? He's a humorist, not a historian. One of the interesting things about this book was to see how his style developed over the years: it gets off to a rather slow and pedestrian start, but eventually settles into typical Sedaris style and material. The book is longer than it ought to be: I could have done without the many descriptions of boring jobs, or the collections of bad jokes or the listings of his Christmas presents. And the book rather annoyingly refers to people as if you knew who they were (with hardly any last names). I did know who Amy and Hugh were, and eventually figured out that Paul and Lisa were his siblings, but who the dozens of others were is anybody's guess. But it was an entertaining read, and I can't recall 500 pages ever going by so fast!

I used to think I'd be happy to listen to David Sedaris reading a phone book. Boy, was I wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm still a fan. I've been to his shows, have most of his books on audio because I like to hear him reading the stories. Didn't like that Chipmunk book, though, and am completely bored by most of Theft by Finding. Two Stars, because there are a few, precious few, interesting entries, mostly with his mom. I definitely won't be buying vol. II.

I’m not sure how much I would have enjoyed this book reading it myself. I’m a slow reader. However, having seen David Sedaris on many talk shows reading his works, I felt fairly certain I would enjoy having him read his book to me. And I did! My only problem, since I was listening on a portable speaker while doing yard work, was some of the language he is recounting. Wouldn’t bother me at all with headphones on, but I felt uncomfortable thinking about my neighbors hearing it. That said, I plan on having him read me all of his books . . . and maybe wearing headphones when working outside.

I love David Sedaris. Love his books, love his essays for the New Yorker. Hated this book. I found the stories of his early days and excessive drug use to be depressing and pathetic. Some people found the book picked up toward the end but I couldn't bring myself to read any further. I'd prefer to preserve my memories of what I LIKE about Sedaris' writing and not delve too far into the relatively unfiltered events that drive his writing.

25 years of diary entries culled and collected. Interesting to view time passing through the entries as 9/11 happens or the transition from anonymity to fame. Funny in many places as well as the bizarre and introspective. If you read Sedaris, this is an enjoyable view into his thinking. If you haven’t read him, I would but would suggest starting somewhere else

David is a unique talent, an intricate mind—a gift to the reader. I recommend listening to his writing, as a large part of the impact comes with his performance. I give this one 4 stars because, though it falls into a different category of this work and should be assessed as such, it still falls a tad short of his other collections. Still a must read.

I don't recall reading anything by this author before but thought this might be something different and interesting from my usual reads. It was definitely different, just not interesting. I kept trying to get into it but there didn't seem to be a rhyme or a reason. Nothing at all to hold my interest. I gave up and moved on to another of my usual mysteries.

Bottom line: if you love David Sedaris, you will love this book. It's not all sardonic wisdom and humor, though- these are his diaries, his observations, his days in and his days out (and down). But his inherent talent as an observer of life comes through, as always. Honestly, this man could write the phone book, and it would more than likely be a delight to read.

Not impressed. I love David Sedaris' work, usually, but this is just a self-indulgent, quite boring book about nothing. A lot of his entries are just unrealistic, as he is always being asked for a cigarette or money, or gangs come up to him constantly in bad neighborhoods, but he never gets beaten up. I just do not find it realistic to talking back to some pretty tough guys, and walking away unscathed. Finding money on the street all the time? Another thing that has never happened to me! Some entries are truly Sedaris funny, but most, plain boring. Each page, I'm asking myself why I am not reading one of the 25 books on my night table right now, and letting this one go? Again, I find it very self-indulgent, and definitely not worth my eyesight, I am sorry to say. I was truly looking forward to reading this. Looks like it's just a burn-out piece of work, on his part. Can't give it more than 2 stars.The entries about his family are always funny, the rest forget it. Also, how many jobs can this guy be offered? One after another, every day, a new job.

Every single time I read a new David Sedaris book it makes the world so much better. I try to read it as slow as I can to make the laughs last as long as I can. I love a good book that makes me smile and Sedaris never fails. He gets funnier as he gets older. I'd love to see him in person, what a riot.

I know this has a front cover, back cover and pages,, but can this be called a book? Just random and disjointed entries by a talented and occasionally humorous writer and nothing more. If this were by nearly anyone else I seriously doubt it would have ever made it past a publisher's trash can.

This selection of diary entries is probably not the best place to start if you are new to David Sedaris. However, if you are a fan this is required reading. Very enjoyable and can be read in small snatches as it is not necessarily a standard essay collection. I have laughed out loud a few times and only about a third of the way through it.

I've always enjoyed David Sedaris, but this somehow made me love him even more--I especially enjoyed getting to learn more about his earlier life before he became successful and how much he struggled to get by let alone get published. Should be heartening for all those writers out there that feel discouraged by all those 30 under 30 lists touting the successes of young writers. A must read!

I usually like this author. Not this book. So much changed for David Sedaris between 1977-2002. He found love, success, survival of drug abuse. What didn’t change? The grim, misanthropic ramblings of a depressive. I kept reading it, thinking this has got to get better. Some glimmer of hope or gratitude or at the very least funny. Nope. He’s apparently just as miserable now as when he was desperately lonely, poor and unknown. A lesson there I guess.

How to succeed in business without really trying. Of course it was funny, sad, familial David Sedaris wrote it! Definitely not as good as some of his books but still a fun read to see a successful author limping his way there.

Really makes me question how many toadies (or money seeking publishers) it took to convince Mr. Sedaris that this is in any way interesting, wry or humorous. Perhaps the problem is with Mr. Sedaris' ego, maybe he was unable to see this for what it is. So sad that he views himself as such a perpetual victim, maybe he thinks that is compelling literature, but it is instead tiring and boring. Agree with everyone who could not read/listen to more than the first diary pages.

I don't get it. I tried to see the essence of what the author was trying to get at but...I didn't get it. Bland meandering "diary entries" all of which sounded the same to me. Here, I'll write one myself for you. "Went down to buy a bottle of milk today. I picked up the newspaper on the way out. The man at the counter said, Come here much? Not much, I said. Well, that's that then."

This is exactly what the title suggests: diary-entries--short, two-to-five sentence diary entries. Sure, David Sedaris reads them exceptionally well, as he does all his books, but even he cannot save this audio book from being anything other than tedious.

Theft by Finding is a collection of excerpts from David Sedaris’s diaries from the years 1977 to 2002. I chuckled several times, and certain parts had me laughing so hard I nearly fell off the couch—especially the parts about him mangling French when he was learning the language after he and his partner had just moved to France. (It’s a brave thing to move to a foreign country and attempt to learn a new language—you’re going to humiliate yourself on a regular basis for sure, which Sedaris does, to the reader’s amusement.)

In addition to the humor, what was fun about this book was the modern history—in 1981, he writes of reading about a “cancer” that only affected homosexuals. In 1982—the popularity of Frogger. In 1985—he gets a “ghetto boom box” for Christmas. Sedaris learned about the World Trade Center attack while he was in Paris. The Bush/Gore debacle in 2000—and his father’s life-long lectures to him about the importance of voting Republican.

Like his collections of essays, his whacky family also provide laughs when they visit or he visits them—sometimes on purpose, like his sister actress/comedian Amy Sedaris, but sometimes just by being themselves told through David Sedaris’s dry wit.

Sedaris spent more years than I realized really struggling financially, so he lived and worked among racists and unabashed wife beaters and lunatics. Sometimes the stories were sad, but sometimes the narcissism of his neighbors was chuckle-inducing.

He talks about quitting drinking and taking drugs casually—it seemed like one day he decided to quit and that was that. He notes when he has 90 days sober and two years sober, but he never reveals that it was a struggle, although after years of alcoholism and drug abuse, I can't imagine that it was easy.

I really enjoyed this, and if/when he comes out with 2003 to 2017, I will definitely read that—I’m looking forward to it!

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the opportunity to review this book.

It takes a lot of courage to open your diaries to the general public... maybe it's time to rethink the sequel.

Thank God I got this from my local library! I've never been so glad to get through the 70s and 80s...EVER! It wasn't until he got to New York that he became funny. The early school years in Paris are hysterical - love how he messes with his teacher. The fact that he names and feeds spiders, collects taxidermy, and loves the macabre is interesting - if he were in drugs. Otherwise, it's just sad. Hugh! Get this man a doctor!

I was hoping for a different experience. I'm only a third of the way through with the book but so far I'm forcing myself to stay with it. It's not funny, which is what I was hoping for. Some parts paint a vivid portrait of racism and homophobia in North Carolina. Otherwise, I'm finding it disappointing. I will update my review once I get through more of it.

Another great book by David Sedaris. Laugh out loud funny. I recently saw him speak where he read excerpts from this book.His observations are spot on and his nuanced humor is what makes his essays and stories work.

David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors. This book is a compilation of his diaries that he has been keeping since he was a young man. I thoroughly enjoyed it. You don't have to read it all at once, you just read a few, or many entries at a time. It's so interesting to read about his young life and what formed him into the person he is today. I can't wait for the next volume to be printed so I can read his thoughts from more contemporary times.

I've been laughing all weekend and I had not anticipated reading the whole book in just two sittings, but, that is what happens with David. His diary ends in 2002 so I hope the next 15 years will be published very soon.

The diary format for the book was different, but I prefer the short anecdotes in Sedaris' other books. Still a good read and was nice to learn more about Sedaris through his life, but just not my favorite.

It’s so interesting how much narrative comes through in David’s diaries. You wouldn’t think any individual’s diary would make such an interesting read, but this was 99% as compelling as any of his other works.

Glimpses into David Sedaris' life before he became famous reveal so much more about him even if you've read all his previous books and essays! His ability to look at his tough life with humor is a great lesson for one and all.

I have read two other David Sedaris books, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, and greatly enjoyed his hilarious perspectives and views on both important issues and the most mundane of topics.

This was interesting as it showed Davids writing, as it evolved over time. It ranges more serious, as we delve into his life, as he longs to succeed as a writer. But his wit and humor shine through with each passage.

I find that if you are a Sedaris enthusiast, this would be a five star must read. This has me wanting to go back and purchase his other titles, to further dive down the rabbit hole that is David's observations and musings. (I also further purchased the audiobook with my Audible free trial, and have listened to about 3 hours of it already, as narrated by Sedaris himself. I find myself appreciating this title even more!)

Be aware that this audiobook is not Whispersync, and is NOT paired with the Kindle edition of this book. The narration by The author is fine, and the content is great. Customer service was able to fix issue that prevented delivery of audiobook to my iPhone even though jointly-purchased Kindle edition was delivered to Kindle app.

This book is painful. At first I was feeling better about my life after reading all his depressing stories. After a while it was just depressing. Overall I'm a fan of his writing though, just not this book.

This is one of the most depressing books I've read in quite some time. The diarist seems to revel in ugliness -- whether it's a dead bird in a freezer, or a dog fetus in a freezer, or torturing an insect he keeps in a jar. There are endless passages dealing with his meth use, or acid, or some other drug, and descriptions of his encounters with various psychopaths he meets while hitchhiking around the United States. Moments of levity or any sort of lightheartedness are few and far between. This is a remarkably bleak account of a broken soul -- if that's what you're into, you'll love this book.

What’s missing in these edited-for-publication journals is Sedaris’s thoughts and anecdotes about becoming a rich, famous writer. Early in the book, he tells us how he’s being hounded by the phone company for payment, how poorly he eats, etc. But later in “Theft” - when he’s a fixture on the NYT bestsellers list - he declines to give readers a sense of what he’s suddenly making, and how his new wealth affects his daily life. (He owns eight homes, according to The Oregonian.) The Santaland Diaries on NPR was what propelled him to fame, but he more or less shrugs in print at that event. I suspect he decided to edit out most introspection about fame, wealth and success out of this book. Disappointing.

I'm a big fan, have read all his books and this one certainly has the Sedaris zing but because they're diary entries, they don't hit their targets every time. When you're hungry for Sedaris - and the world could use more of his biting wit - you need more than a cookie, you need a meal.

In volume one of his select diary entries David Sedaris shows he is eminently readable in yet another format. Diaries are not always compelling, but in covering the years 1977-2002 the author reveals himself to be an astute observer -- and funny in any format.

Most entries are short and there is no overarching theme in their selection, so it's possible to just dip one's toe in the book randomly, as Sedaris suggests in his charming introduction, where he also tells readers he chooses not to share much from his drug-addled days. There is no need to read this in order.

What shines through on every page is DS's humanity and humor, from reporting jokes he's heard to pithy bon mots, character studies and funny and/or interesting stories. The introduction is well worth a read.

I've read all of David Sedaris' books over the year and enjoyed them immensely (with my favorite probably being "Me Talk Pretty One Day"). This book is a collection of selected diary/journal entries spanning the years 1977-2002. (A lifelong keeper of a diary, Sedaris talks in the intro of publishing another volume of diary entries after this one.)

I read the book straight through, and I thought the reading got noticeably better once he moved to Chicago. The entries got longer, more descriptive, and more reminiscent of the Sedaris we know and love. In many ways, reading this book is like watching a writer discover his voice. As the book goes on, long-time Sedaris readers will recognize various spans of his life as he lives them, but the book isn't a retread of any of his longer essays.

All in all, I thought the book was an enjoyable read, but I suspect that it will mostly appeal to long-time Sedaris fans rather than Sedaris newbies. I did find myself wishing over and over for photos though. Surely he could have included a few from along the way in some form!!! : )

If you like vulgarity, you might like this book ... It is truly disappointing when someone as articulate and educated as David Sedaris drags his pen... and his tongue through the toilet. (I listened to him speak one time but will not make that mistake again.)