Review
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PRAISE FOR THEFT BY FINDING:
"Starve and Struggle. Feast. Bloat. These are the three stages
that all artists - with some variation - go through in their
careers...So it's encouraging to read 25 years of David Sedaris's
diaries, and not just because he manages to defeat Bloat. It's
helpful to see that a voice as original, hilarious and sometimes
as infuriating as his was put through the same Struggle and
Starve meat grinder that most of us go through...No one escapes
Bloat, but many survive it. Maybe not with the grace, whining,
hilarity and eye-rolling that Sedaris does. But through all 25
years of "Theft by Finding" - of soap opera addictions and spider
feeding, family kookiness and language lessons - Sedaris's
developing voice is the lifeline that pulls him through the
murk."
―Patton Oswalt, New York Times Book Review
"If it's hard to be funny, it's an astounding feat to stay
funny--wildly, wickedly, ingeniously so--for more than twenty
years. Yet David Sedaris has somehow pulled it off, in
exhilarating essays that zero in on the absurd and the poignant
with eviscerating wit and radiant humanity....Fans will no doubt
delight in the entries that will turn into Sedaris's most beloved
essays...We're treated to a portrait of the artist as a young
man, albeit one with an old and singular soul."
―Fiona Maazel, O, The Oprah Magazine
"A standout... Whether he's in an IHOP in Raleigh or his
apartment in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, his eye for the
absurd and the vulgar is infallible and his deadpan prose style
inimitable...Here, the relatively artless diary entries, short
and long, sequenced and non sequitur, add up to something we've
never gotten before--a big, juicy narrative arc. It comprises 25
years of an essentially heartwarming success story, any potential
ickiness kept in check by Sedaris's judicious minimalism."
―Marion Winik, Newsday
"Mesmerizing... Delightful... Sedaris describes the world around
him... the vast and splendid array of human life that can be
observed at IHOP, or the vagaries of fruit picking... Reading
Theft by Finding is like watching a favorite play from behind the
scenes, in the company of a friend who can identify what is
absurd and heartbreaking and human about every person on stage."
―Annalisa Quinn, NPR
"Sedaris, a master of incisive and comic cultural criticism, is
about to get more personal than ever...Theft by Finding reveals
details of this literary luminary's life and mind--all
told with his singular sense of humor."
―Harper's Bazaar
"Sedaris fans will thrill to this rtunity to poke around in
the writer's personal diaries, which he has faithfully kept for
four decades and used as raw material for his hilarious
nonfiction as well as his performances."
―Paul S. Makishima, Boston Globe
"If you've had the good fortune of seeing Sedaris on tour, you've
probably heard him read from one of his snarky and hilariously
solipsistic diary entries. Finally, they're collected in one
place for the first time."
―Entertainment Weekly
"Randomly open to any page of Theft by Finding and you'll find a
gem... Sedaris's gift is to make you stop and think one moment
and laugh out loud the next."―Rob Merrill, Associated Press
"Here, in these as-it-happened accounts and jottings, is a rich
chunk of the mother lode from which David Sedaris has mined his
personal essays and performances. The extracts in Theft by
Finding cover what may be called the disconsolate IHOP years,
when he was a college dropout, rootless casual worker and
aspiring artist, and those during which he became a celebrity....
The appeal of these diary entries lies in their spareness and in
Sedaris's boundless relish for the absurdity of life.... The
Sedaris of these diaries is, above all, a connoisseur of annoying
things and of bothersome and downright dreadful people."
―Katherine A. Powers, Washington Post
"This is Sedaris, who can be wickedly funny as well as
deliciously inful about modern mores - so the nuggets are
big and shiny and well worth panning for... His eccentric
existence is eminently enthralling."―David Holahan, USA Today
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About the Author
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David Sedaris is the author of the books Let's
Explore es with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are
Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me
Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He
is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. He
lives in England.
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