A review by judyward
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules by David Sedaris

4.0

One of the reasons that I love David Sedaris is that he shares my love of reading and books. In his introduction, Sedaris reflected about books and wrote that, in his opinion, "a good one would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit. This led to a kind of trance that made the dullest work, the dullest life, bearable." And he claimed that "I believed, and still do, that stories can save you." Exactly! David Sedaris wrote the introduction to this book and he has picked his favorite short stories to be enjoyed by readers. The authors are as varied as the stories and include Alice Munro, Dorothy Parker, Tobias Wolff, Lorrie Moore, Patricia Highsmith, and Flannery O'Connor. I picked up this book expecting it to be authored by David Sedaris and, after my initial surprise, found myself engrossed in the wonderful short fiction.