Reviews

The Best of Me by David Sedaris

bart_gunn's review against another edition

4.0

Deeply cynical. Very funny. With nearly 50 essays compiled here chronologically, it doesn’t always feel like a page turner, but it would make an excellent bathroom book. Enjoy a new chapter with each visit!

jrosegross's review against another edition

emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

5.0

khornstein1's review

4.0

I'm a convert...started out finding the stories....unkind? And the casual bias was a bit disturbing, though not surprising for the time some of the stories were written. Then I got to Loggerheads. That story just blew me away. The stories in the latter part of the book, mostly about his family, were outstanding. For book club.

gne's review

emotional funny medium-paced

4.0

carli11's review

funny reflective fast-paced

4.25

krystlem's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

raesock's review against another edition

5.0

I wasn't sure I would read this when I saw it was being published. I am a huge fan of David Sedaris but i have read/listened to all of his books, some several times, and seen him live so I thought I might be bored reading it all again. Nope. It truly is a best of collection and I laughed out loud so many times. The story about Mrs. Peacock and her little plastic back scratcher, the title store of Me Talk Pretty One Day, the one about the classy couple on the airplane, the dog poems, the taxidermy owl story...I will now recommend this to people who haven't read him before and if they love it, tell them there is even more in his other books. and the audiobooks are ALWAYS worth it.

deribash's review

adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted sad fast-paced

4.75

lubel80's review

5.0

I've read all of these essays before, but it's always great to revisit them. It's also interesting to see which ones David Sedaris considers his best vs what I would choose. A lot are the same, but there were a few notable ones missing IMO.

somanybookstoread's review

emotional funny inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

Although his work had fallen off my radar the last 8-10 years, I used to read and re-read everything Sedaris wrote. I have seen him read his work about five times. He is funny, interesting, and his work inspired me to write essays (fun fact: I told him this when I met him after one of his readings and he remembered me and asked how my book was coming along about three years later). So I will always be a big fan of David Sedaris and his work. I admire how prolific and dedicated he is as a writer. It was interesting to read his self-proclaimed “Best of” collection and to see his decisions around selecting and curating this collection. In this collection, his humor lands for me about 80% of the time. There are a few pieces that are narrated by animals that didn’t work for me. And there are a surprising number of references to animal cruelty that I will never be able to read without becoming upset (drowning mice, for example). I was also interested to re-read pieces published 15-20 years ago and considered how certain references to race likely wouldn’t make an editor’s cut today. 

Overall, I recommend this collection and everything else Sedaris has written. I love his voice and have a lot of respect for him.