Why David Sedaris Wrote “To Hell With Books” in My Book
David Sedaris is world-famous for his hilarious autobiographical essays. But what first got me into him were his short stories. I had not heard of Sedaris before I saw his books on sale on Kindle; I picked up Barrel Fever, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, and started reading. I began with Barrel Fever; because his fiction precedes his essays in this collection, I started with these. And I couldn't get enough of them; they reminded me of Stephen Leacock's stories (a Canadian humourist who was also world-famous in his day)—but an order of magnitude more outrageous.
Sedaris's short stories are about as outrageous as they get. So outrageous are they, in fact, that one day, when I read an excerpt at the office to an ordinarily super-low-key colleague, he became anxious and said, "Shut up, we're going to get in trouble!" So outrageous are some of his stories that I'm reluctant to excerpt them here—and I'm the boss of this platform! So, needless to say, when I heard that Sedaris was coming to town for a reading and book signing, I cleared my calendar.
I stood in line for ages. Sedaris, I learned, does not rush; and if it's closing time and some fans are still waiting to get their books signed, well, the store must stay open. But when there were only a few others ahead of me in line, an employee announced that it was time for Mr. Sedaris to prepare for his reading; we would have to wait until afterwards. The employee then dispersed us. While crushing in the moment, this, it turned out, worked in my favour.
I decided to browse the massive book store's collection while waiting for the reading to begin. I was loitering behind Sedaris—although I was separated from him by a low bookshelf—when an employee announced that the reading was about to commence. Of course, a crowd immediately materialized in front of the author; meanwhile, I was blocked by the annoying bookshelf. It was already too late to go around and get a good spot, so I decided to stay put—at least I was close to him. But then another employee told me that I couldn't stand there, that I'd have to go in front. I was, once again, extremely disappointed, seeing as I'd have to go to the back of the crowd—but then Sedaris turned around and said, "just come around and sit here." He pointed to the floor right in front of him. And thus I got the best seat in the house.
His reading was hilarious. A couple of months later the essay he'd read appeared in The New Yorker, although revised. I subsequently learned, through watching his Masterclass on humour writing, that he tests and refines his essays with audiences before publishing them.
After his reading I got back in line. As I got close, I overheard some of the conversations; I won't recite them here, but, needless to say, Mr. Sedaris says some extremely outrageous and funny things off the cuff. (He also eats mixed nuts and offers them to his fans.) When it was finally my turn, I mentioned (after declining the mixed nuts) that I'd grabbed his books on Kindle. I told him that I loved Barrel Fever. He then asked me if they'd changed the cover. "I don't know," I said, while thinking, It's your book!
I mentioned that I pretty much only read e-books. Sedaris then told me—and I was extremely surprised by this—that he doesn't read books anymore; rather, he listens exclusively to audio books. I asked him if he got as much from these as from actual books, and he ventured that he did. This surprised me because I had a bias against audio books—listening to them, I figured, was somehow less intellectually rigorous, and that to be an author, one must actually read. But he proved me wrong. So whenever I listen to audio books now, I say to myself, If it's good enough for Sedaris, it's good enough for me! And with that discussion in mind, David Sedaris munificently signed the paper copy of Calypso that I'd purchased just for the occasion.