Worst book you ever read

I distinctly remember quitting reading his Hawaii as I couldn't work past the seemingly unending opening pages. This was now a long time ago, early sixties, I think.

I knew that, but forgot.

I just, I don't know - I guess it's hard to explain taste. I just found and find him annoying.

Thank you for asking.

Easy to mix up the two

Have you ever heard him tell his tales.

He has the weirdest, driest voice ever.

Huh. I wonder if he's on iTunes. There are spoken books there - I'm blanking on the company - but I listened to a bunch of Jane Austen that way a few years ago, and they were terrific.

One of the worst books I ever read was Pay It Forward.

I only finished it because a friend kept telling me, even while I was reading it, how good it was.

What should have been written in no more than 2 paragraphs took an entire book? They made a movie of it as well?

Re Sedaris, I really like his early stuff. I love how he describes his family. Especially his mother. My favorite essay of his was"A Plague of Tics". I identified with it, probably way too much.

I can see thought how he can be annoying, and after awhile his material became stale to me.

But, I do have to say "Thanks Stadium Pal"

It's hard to unhear his voice once it's in your head.

I hear him on the radio a fair bit. Very uhhhhhh disctinctive voice.

Pretty much all of his audiobooks are on youtube.

I saw him at a book reading, and that voice, combined with his stature, and what he says, made for a very interesting evening.

He does a mean Billie Holliday.

Not trying to make this a Sedaris thread, but this is a pretty good excerpt from "Me Talk Pretty One Day", if you want to hear his voice.

"The Bride Collector" by Ted Decker.

It was billed on the cover as one of NPR's 100 top thrillers.

I bought it in an airport in a rush to board the plane and it was all I had to read for the next many hours.

It was the sort of unbelievably bad that you almost couldn't quit reading it because you couldn't believe anyone ever published it.

One sentence I recall went something like this:

"She was very, very, very, very pretty."

I was first exposed to Sedaris on NPR and if you can't see him, his voice is even weirder. At first I couldn't tell if he was a man or a woman. I'm biased, I think he's brilliant. His tales about his family are hysterical as well as those about his partner Hugh.

I've always enjoyed Sedaris, and have somewhere back in time liked his sister Amy too. Haven't read or listened to him in a while now.

Sedaris' "The Santaland Diaries" is one of the funniest things I've ever read!

I wonder if that was a NaNoWriMo novel originally - those are all about the word count.

Also, I don't want to name names, but I read a ton of indie stuff now as I'm in that community and we beta read, edit, proofread, and review each others' work all the time.

And a lot of those folks, lovely as they are, should absolutely not be quitting their day jobs.

He's written a LOT of books. They're well reviewed on Amazon despite many of them selling for a penny. I think all the reviews were written by people at his church or something. (He writes Christian "thrillers".)

I've only read one. Maybe the others are better. I can't figure it out.

Yeah, first time for me was listening to This American Life. It was the story how he lost his virginity in Greece. I was driving and practically had to pull over I was laughing so hard. I love Amy's part in the story. I didn't realize then he was writing about his real family.

Never heard of this guy in The UK. Found this really funny. Looking on Amazon now.

I'm trying to remember if David Sedaris wrote for the New Yorker, almost sure . . . and yep, he does, apparently frequently. Since I've decades long liked the NYer, that's like giving me double bubble chewing gum.

The trick for me and the NYer is not going over the paywall limit, but now I'll watch for him. I think it's six articles a month, but not sure of that.

http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/david-sedaris
That link is worth looking at, even if it brings your total free for the month down to five.

And Boomer, Santa Land Diaries might have been when I first noticed him.

I would suggest you start with the book "Naked"