David Sedaris is one of the funniest authors I've ever read. His storytelling is superb and absolutely hilarious! This is a must-read for anyone out there who wants to temporarily escape their own dull lives and live vicariously through someone else. Underneath Sedaris's humorous adventures lies a sadness and fear, but that's what makes the stories so beautiful and genuine. Living with OCD, his mother's death, and realizing and accepting his homosexuality are amongst life's trying situations, to say the least. But Sedaris recounts those experiences with tenderness and dignity. I dreaded getting to the last page, and when I closed the book and put it back on the shelf it felt like I was losing a new friend. So...the solution to that was simple....I just pre-ordered his next book.

NOTE: If you loved "Naked" you'll love "Barrell Fever."


Very, very funny   March 21, 2000
 64 out of 69 found this review helpful

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.


Funniest memoir I've ever read!   July 16, 2000
 36 out of 37 found this review helpful

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.


funny and complicated   January 23, 2001
 28 out of 37 found this review helpful

Sedaris writes scathingly about a wide range of outrageous characters and incidents, e.g., the nudist colony experience which is the subject of the eponymous final chapter. Coupled with being gay, that is, with the stereotypical connotations of La Cage Aux Folles-style flamboyance, the lurid title "Naked" might come across at first blush as embodying the book's scandalously funny contents. To me, however, the book's title seems to be referring more to the state of Sedaris's soul while writing these pieces. While I did find myself laughing giddily in many places at Sedaris's humorous observations and turns of phrase, the overall impression I had was of a brooding heart, painfully aware of life's absurdity and its own failings. Sedaris seems to have been born too conscious, in every sense.

So along with appreciating the comedy, I would suggest peering through the humorous haze of absurd scenarios and make out the subtle background hues, to see the real man struggling to find himself.

Read as a book of funny tales, the book gets 4 stars, because the biting humor and silliness wore a bit thin toward the middle. Read as a straightforward memoir, the book gets 4 stars, because I got the sense that even in baring himself, Sedaris is still hiding some essential self-stuff. He admits himself that he can't help being tongue-in-cheek about everything; the coating of goofy absurdity pasted on most things in the book is even a little too polished and slick. While admiring its sheen I felt I kept sliding upon it, away from the 'real' Sedaris.

But maybe that's exactly the point. Read as an impressionist sketch of the author's philosophy and state of mind, it is probably all the more real for its masks and self-consciousness and diversions.

In any case, whether you are by nature attracted to the grinning or frowning mask, you'll find something here for you.


You'll giggle, then roar, usually in public places...   August 20, 2000
 27 out of 29 found this review helpful

The days when David Sedaris was on Morning Edition on NPR (National Public Radio), I was always late for work. His commentaries on being a single gay man working odd-jobs or cleaning apartments in New York City were some of the fall-down funniest things I've ever heard. In print, he is no less skillful at making me weep with laughter. Sedaris, in a raw, honest manner, describes the events of his childhood and young adulthood - as perceived by his incredibly humorous and rich imagination. This collection of essays cover everything from his mother's sharp, accurate portrayal of his tics, his job as a mental health institution assistant, his sister's wedding/his mother's death, to dealing with (while in high school) being gay, and many of the funny little stories that make up being a member of a family, any family. His wit is dry, sharp, poignant, and philosophical all the same time. And after listening to his voice on those cold mornings on the radio, I can "hear" him tell these tales. What a riot! I have read some of the other reviewers who gave this book a one and all I can say is that I pity the person who does not have a sense of humor because they miss out on the absolute joy of reading anything by Sedaris - or even better, listening to him. wow.