David Sedaris's Reading List

"Now I’ve started Shalom Auslander’s “Hope: A Tragedy.” His last book, “Foreskin’s Lament,” really made me laugh."

"His last book, “Foreskin’s Lament,” really made me laugh."

"“Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea,” by a woman named Barbara Demick, was a real eye-opener."

"I’d say Wells Tower’s “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.” What an exciting story collection it is, unlike anything I’ve ever come across."

"I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the “Harry Potter” books. They’re read by the great Stephen Fry, and I play them over and over, like an 8-year-old."

"I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the “Harry Potter” books. They’re read by the great Stephen Fry, and I play them over and over, like an 8-year-old."

"I remember being floored by the first Raymond Carver collection I read: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” His short, simple sentences and familiar-seeming characters made writing look, if not exactly easy, then at least possible."

"I would want him to read “Is There No Place on Earth for Me?,” Susan Sheehan’s great nonfiction book about a young schizophrenic woman. It really conveys the grinding wheel of mental illness."

"My sister Amy and I have similar tastes in nonfiction, and on her recommendation I recently read and enjoyed “Tiger, Tiger,” by Margaux Fragoso."

"I’m looking forward to the new Michael Chabon book. I loved “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”"

"I just remember the excitement that I felt when I got Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love from the library. The writing was so simple."

"Another strong stylist that I imitated for a while was a woman named Joy Williams who had a short story collection called Taking Care . She has such a singular voice. It hasn’t really changed over the years. I remember she was talking about a girl having a fantasy about her beau and she said, ‘He was feeling fine, and fancy too.’ It was such music to me."

"I can look back through my diary and I can tell when I discovered Joan Didion because all of a sudden I’m writing like Joan Didion. I mean it’s a very poor imitation, but there I am, writing like Joan Didion."

"I’ve read every word Tobias Wolff has ever written. I have to be his biggest fan. Really, I would fight someone. If someone came in here and said ‘I’m his biggest fan,’ I would fight that person and I would win. Because I’m Tobias Wolff’s biggest fan."

"I read The Easter Parade or Revolutionary Road every year. Richard Yates is just a good word-for-word on-the-page writer. He couldn’t be more different than someone like Joy Williams or Raymond Carver. His sentences are very complex, the stories are complicated and he was such a miserable man. I always like people who would hate me. I don’t know what that’s about. But Richard Yates would definitely hate me."

"The book is so good at showing the grinding wheel of mental illness. And the writing is so good. She doesn’t turn somersaults in a sentence. She does her job and you’re just devastated."

"I like an audiobook. Quite often in an audiobook someone will read a story, especially the last line of a story, and I’ll think, ‘That’s not how it goes at all. Don’t you know anything?’ But Elaine Stritch, who’s a Broadway actress, recorded Dorothy Parker stories and she understood those stories. There’s nothing I would change. Not a thing in those recordings. They’re masterful. They never released them on CD or digital. They’re just on tapes and that’s why I’ll never get rid of my tape player."