A Modest Bestiary

Last week Mike and I went to see David Sedaris read at Royce Hall. He read a couple stories from his book that will be out this fall, A Modern Bestiary. All of the stories in A Modern Bestiary are about animals, but none of the stories he read featured cats. Sorry Jenny!

He also read some other work, diary entries, and answered audience questions. Hearing him speak makes me think Sedaris is much darker than the persona in his books, which is fun (for example, he recommended this book to the audience). I was surprised at how diverse the audience was; I expected it to be middle-aged and gay, but there were young and old, gay and straight, though they were 98% white (a few Asians show up).

My favorite Sedaris piece so far (full disclosure: I haven't read all of his books) is this essay that appears in the New Yorker, "Guy Walks Into a Bar Car." It includes a joke about testicles that I have tried to tell on many occasions, with poor results.