Acclaim for David Sedaris’s

Me Talk Pretty One Day

“Blisteringly funny.”

— David Cobb Craig, People

“His most sidesplitting work to date. The stories chronicling Sedaris’s time in Paris are painfully funny fish-out-of-water tales about the difficulty of learning the language and the near-impossibility of translating the culture.… The simple, effortless comic build of these stories had me howling in the airport, my hands shaking, my eyes glistening with tears.”

— Sarah Hepola, Austin Chronicle

“Mercy, mercy! David Sedaris is dangerously funny.”

— Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Hilarious and insightful.… Mr. Sedaris may not talk pretty, but he does write funny.”

— Robert J. Hughes, Wall Street Journal

“Arguably one of the funniest writers working today.… Sedaris’s humor is based on a writer’s best friend: droll, descriptive storytelling.”

— Anne Stephenson, USA Today

“Pure pleasure.… The pieces that deal with Sedaris’s fumbling efforts to learn French in Paris as a newly installed ‘ex-pat’ are among his funniest ever.”

— Zoe Rosenfeld, Us

“Sedaris’s best vignettes are completely engaging.… He makes you laugh out loud.”

— Jonathan Reynolds, New York Times Book Review

“Hilarious.… Sedaris has the ability to seem constantly surrounded by surreal events and situations.… The book is laugh-out-loud funny, witty, trenchant, and over far too soon.”

— Chris Barsanti, Book

“David Sedaris has one of the most shameless, acid, vaulting wits on planet earth.… Each essay is a delight.”

— Adam F. Kay, Boston Book Review

“A student of American letters and literature would probably herald Sedaris as a modern-day Mark Twain.… Each chapter is an essay that will put a grin on your face.”

— Lisa Neff, Chicago Free Press

“Mr. Sedaris’s peculiar genius lies in his ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art.”

— Daphne Evistar, Christian Science Monitor

“Sedaris is funny, smart, and wickedly observant.… Take Me Talk Pretty One Day somewhere where you can laugh unabashed, or better, where you can read your favorite parts out loud.”

— Susan Warmbrunn, Colorado Springs Gazette

“What a wonderful storyteller Sedaris is.… His writing embodies the softened bite of Dorothy Parker, the highbrow sarcasm of Fran Lebowitz, and the social commentary of Oscar Wilde.”

— James Reed, Columbia Missourian

“There is no contemporary writer as reliably funny as David Sedaris. His best humor seems to come from the same place as — dare I think it? — Mark Twain’s. It’s dark and suffering, extremely caustic, skillfully exaggerated, but recognizably true.”

— Marilyn Bailey, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Sedaris’s genius lies in transforming strangeness, obsessive voyeurism, and endearingly snotty observations into wildly entertaining art.”

— Rob Stout, Providence Journal

“David Sedaris is our generation’s James Thurber, Dorothy Parker, Fran Lebowitz, Woody Allen, and Mark Twain wrapped in a compact package with a pixie’s voice. He’s a treasure to behold.”

— Seth Flicker, Genre

“Sedaris is a master at turning his life experiences into witty vignettes that both entertain and comment on the human condition.”

— Gloria Maxwell, Library Journal

“Sedaris catalogs his foibles in a way that, while wildly funny, is also moving.”

— Henry Alford, LA Weekly

“David Sedaris is seriously funny. In Me Talk Pretty One Day he again accomplishes the cliché: He makes you laugh and he makes you cry. Sometimes both at once.”

— Diana D. Powell, Memphis Commercial Appeal

“Sedaris’s irresistibly funny travel essays, reminiscences, and diary entries hit with an almost physical wallop.… With a sharpshooter’s eye for detail, he writes about his experiences in a way that inspires a shock of recognition. … It may take Sedaris more practice to talk pretty, but he writes gorgeous.”

— Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A writer who is capable of being not only funny, but touching, even tender, too.… David Sedaris is part Walter Mitty, part Garry Shandling, part Andy Rooney, with a little bit of Oscar Wilde thrown in for good measure; a campy commentator on the absurdities of contemporary life.”

— Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

“The poignancy is palpable here… so that we are curled up laughing while we read but also deeply affected by all that hides between the lines.… It’s classic Sedaris, making us laugh, making us care. Making us more human through his humor.”

— Beth Kephart, Philadelphia Inquirer

“Sedaris is Garrison Keillor’s evil twin: like the Minnesota humorist, Sedaris focuses on the icy patches that mar life’s sidewalk, though the ice in his work is much more slippery and the falls much more spectacularly funny.”

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Sidesplitting.… Me Talk Pretty One Day fits loosely into the tradition pioneered by those literary wags of an earlier era, like S. J. Perelman and Robert Benchley, who spun their random observations into epically loopy fantasias.… Sedaris, too, examines the ridiculousness of those around him, but he does it with affectionate curiosity and not a jot of shame about his own mischievous weirdness.”

— Greg Villepique, Salon.com

“David Sedaris has gone to the well of pain and come back repeatedly with heart-tugging tales that would have readers in tears if they weren’t so busy laughing.”

— Glenda Winders, San Diego Union-Tribune

“Razor-sharp funny.”

— Hal Jacobs, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Hilarious.… These stories are gems of wit and intimacy.… Whether you listen to a Sedaris story or read one, the effect is blissfully, elegantly funny.… Sedaris uncovers what makes everyday life amusing enough to keep us living it.”

— Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel

“It’s all hilarious.… Listen to me: you have got to read David Sedaris. He just might be the funniest writer in North America.”

— Vue (Edmonton, Canada)