Naked

by David Sedaris

Book Overview

In Naked, David Sedaris's message alternately rendered in Fakespeare, Italian, Spanish, and pidgin Greek is the same: pay attention to me. Whether he's taking to the road with a thieving quadriplegic, sorting out the fancy from the extra-fancy in a bleak fruit-packing factory, or celebrating Christmas in the company of a recently paroled prostitute, this collection of memoirs creates a wickedly incisive portrait of an all-too-familiar world. It takes...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316779490
• ISBN13: 9780316779494
• Release Date: March 1997
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 13 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 8 and higher

Customer Reviews

Genious

I am the type of person who is very picky when it comes to books. I can't get into a book or even finish it unless it's very good..But this is the book that got me hooked on David Sedris. I've read all of Sedaris's books, this one is by far the funniest. I remember this book being the first one I have ever read in one sitting, and actually laughed out loud to! The man is just hilarious. Plain and simple..His stories are so different, so bizzare, and just delivered with great wit. This is the kind of humor I wish was more apparent in TV and movies, not that horrible teen movie "look at my gentials" kind of garbage. Get this book!

The Funniest Book I Ever Read

I was about to go on a long plane trip. A good friend gave me Naked, saying "I hear this guy on NPR and for some reason I think of you." I never did read the book on the plane ride (lucky for my fellow frequent flyers since my laughter would have annoyed them no end). When I finally got around to reading it I laughed from start to finish.In one chapter (I can't use the book for a reference since it is in circulation to all my good friends who have a demented sense of humor) he talks about his mother's discovery that she has terminal cancer. The idea that this can be side-splittingly funny without being mean spirited is amazing and indicitive of how brilliant Sedaris is.If life is getting you down and you need someone to make you laugh precisely because life can suck sometimes, find a place where you won't annoy people with your laughter and read Naked.

Funniest memoir I've ever read!

This book is classified as a memoir, and it's the funniest one I've read to date. Growing up Greek in North Carolina couldn't have been easy, but adding to the mix a crazy grandmother and a sibling with a penchant for using towels as toilet paper makes it that much harder (and funnier, to us). David was struck with enthusiastic OCD as a child, only to find ways to "cure" his tics in college. His stories of life after schooling include apple-picking and packing, working with jade (not to mention a crazy, hypocritical Christian), and refinishing woodwork with a Jew-hating Lithuanian and a somewhat confused black guy. He hitchhikes with all levels of human decapitation until a rowdy truck driver combs thicket by the roadside looking for him.Not all of the fifteen stories are side-splitting funny. "I Like Guys" highlights accepting his homosexual feelings, and an undercurrent of seriousness lines the story. "Ashes" tells of his mother's cancer, and a sense of tragedy seems to sober his usually razor-sharp satirical style.The last (and title) story, "Naked", tells of his experience with a nudist colony. It's written in more a journal form (the others are written in a 'flashback' form) and by the end, you feel strange in your own clothing.I definitely plan on recommending this book to my friends. I don't see how you could live your life without picking up a Sedaris book.

Very, very funny

NAKED is--by far--the funniest book I have ever read. Several people suggested that I read it, and I ignored them for a long time: I had a lot of other books I wanted to get to first. I finally read it this weekend. The next thing I knew, I was ordering HOLIDAYS ON ICE and BARREL FEVER.NAKED is a collection of true stories from David Sedaris's life. I only wish my life was half as funny. "Chipped Beef," "Get Your Ya-Ya's Out" and "I Like Guys" are highlights of this collection, but the funniest story is "A Plague of Tics." In it, Sedaris discusses his strange behaviors as a child: licking lightswitches, hitting himself with his shoe. I laughed so hard reading this story that my roommate told me I was going to have to shut up.Give NAKED a shot. If you like it, pick up BARREL FEVER. It isn't as funny, but it's close.