Saturday, January 23, 2010

Audiobook Review: David Sedaris - Live for Your Listening Pleasure

David Sedaris: Live For Your Listening Pleasure is a short (1 hour 14 min) audio collection of performances from Sedaris's last tour. Perhaps my favorite essay on this recording is "Innocence Abroad". In this story, Sedaris moves from a hilarious description of his old professor's exaggerated pronunciation of any "Latin" word or name to his encounters with Americans who come to visit his home in France and their cultural missteps in the foreign country. As with most of Sedaris's essays, the story gradually picks up momentum until you are laughing uncontrollably at the picture Sedaris has painted.

I love Sedaris's humor when reading it but listening to him is better - his delivery adds even more to his comic anecdotes. His timing is impeccable. I saw Sedaris live at Lincoln Center during this most recent tour (so some of the essays on the recording were not new to me - still funny the second time around).

He will be touring again this April/May but I see from the author's website that there are no scheduled appearances in NY - looks like I will have to wait for the audio recording of that tour to be released to get my Sedaris fix. If he is visiting a city near you, I recommend seeing him live!

8 comments:

  1. I love his audio books. My favorite was Dress You Family in Corduroy!

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  2. Diane,

    I have that in book format but I am considering just listening to his books because his delivery is so good!

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  3. I love him. I haven't listened to him on audio but I should probably give it a try! I've seen him on talk shows and thought he was hilarious.

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  4. I loved this audio! I was out in horrible Christmas shopping traffic while I was listening to it and I just laughed while everyone else got frustrated.

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  5. I love Sedaris' audiobooks and was lucky enough to see him in Syracuse about a year ago... he was so funny!!

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  6. I'm glad you posted this! He's actually coming to my little town in a couple of months, and he's on my list but I've never actually read anything by him. I'll have to fix that and get tickets to see him. Thanks!

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  7. I keep meaning to read Sedaris and it looks like an audio is the way to go!

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  8. Did you get a chance to read his last collection? I'm a huge, huge fan and would definitely call him one of my writing influences, but boy, was I disappointed in it when I compared it to his other books.

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