The Ultimate David Sedaris (Audio CD)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Previously released in 2002 as a 14-CD set containing Sedaris's Naked, Holidays on Ice, Barrel Fever and Other Stories and Me Talk Pretty One Day, this updated 20-CD box set adds his latest two Grammy-nominated audios (his single-disc live concert at Carnegie Hall and the unabridged Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim). Twenty-two hours of Sedaris in one box should be nirvana to his legion of fans. This collection allows listeners to witness Sedaris's growth as a writer. He never stops being funny but by Dress Your Family, his essays exhibit the memoirist more than the humorist, and his ability to walk a razor's edge between hilarity and heartbreak (without bathos) is breathtaking. His essays are written to be read aloud, and he performs them flawlessly. Considering the long gestation of this collection, it's surprising that the interior packaging is so dismal. The discs are housed in blank, black slipcases with no illustrations or track listings (which is especially distressing because Barrel Fever, Naked and Holidays don't have track listings on their discs and there is no track listing on the outer package). (Nov.)
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From AudioFile

I read out loud, David Sedaris says modestly. His voice might not sound powerful, but its lack of power enhances his deadpan style. It also conveys the pain that echoes throughout his often autobiographical essays, which frequently touch on his experiences growing up gay in North Carolina and his offbeat take on life. The extra energy Sedaris gets from an audience makes LIVE FROM CARNEGIE HALL the sets highlight. Sedariss humor is frank--often with profanity--as it mixes the touching and personal with laugh-out-loud moments. The box collects Sedariss releases through DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM; theres some repetition of themes and material throughout the set. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Warner Adult (November 20, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594836345
• ISBN-13: 978-1594836343
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.4 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #201,917 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 80 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth it if you don't have any of the pieces but poor packaging and no track listings (but here they are anyway), December 29, 2006

By	Marc - See all my reviews

This is a great collection whether you are a long-term Sedaris fan or are just beginning to discover him. It's a pretty good deal if you don't have any of his audio books yet. While I don't usually go for audio books, I find that I am not only hooked on the writing but also on Sedaris's hilarious delivery. The "live" performances are best.

As rightly pointed out by another reviewer, the packaging is the biggest disappointment. At $100 retail, one would expect (1) a sturdier and more elegant outer case, (2) individual packaging of each set inside the outer case (the current split into 4 inner booklets does not adhere to the component volumes), and (3) track listings. Of these, #2 is the most glaring shortcoming: the four inner booklets are too thick, have too much cardboard, are unwieldy and inconsistently organized, and have no artwork or even any labeling at all: you have to open each booklet to find a particular disc or set. In fact, the only writing on each booklet is a US Patent number (why this idiotic design was ever patented and why they feel the need to stress that is beyond me). I could easily have designed a nicer, slimmer, and more ergonomic packaging (anyone from Hachette reading this? Feel free to contact me next time.)

Finally, here are the track listings, since there are none in the whole bulky package. Note that the longer segments are divided in multiple tracks: the first track of such segments is listed below.

*** Barrel Fever: Disc 1 ***
01. Intro & Drag
03. Giantess
05. The Curly Kind
07. You Can't Kill the Rooster
10. Parade
14. The Last You'll Hear from Me

*** Barrel Fever: Disc 2 ***
01. Glen's Homophobia News Letter Vol. 3, No. 2
05. Barrel Fever

*** Barrel Fever: Disc 3 ***
01. Don's Story
05. Golden Moments
08. Tattle Tale
12. Credits

*** Holidays on Ice: Disc 1 ***
01. SantaLand Diaries

*** Holidays on Ice: Disc 2 ***
01. Based Upon a True Story
07. Season's Greetings

*** Holidays on Ice: Disc 3 ***
01. Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol
03. Dinah, the Christmas [...]
09. Christmas Means Giving
13. Credits

*** Naked: Disc 1 ***
01. A Plague of Tics
06. Get Your Ya-Ya's Out
11. Next Of Kin

*** Naked: Disc 2 ***
01. Cyclops
04. True Detectives
09. The Drama Bug
12. I Like Guys

*** Naked: Disc 3 ***
01. Ashes
07. Naked
14. Credits

*** Live at Carnegie Hall ***
01. Thanks
02. Repeat after Me
05. Why Them? [Introduction to NPR's Ira Glass and Terry Gross Show]
06. Who's the Chef?
08. The Feminine Mistake
09. With a Pal like This You Don't Need an Enemy
10. Six to Eight Black Men
13. Q & A
14. Credits

*** Me Talk Pretty One Day: Disc 1 ***
01. Go Carolina
06. Giants Dreams, Midget Abilities
11. The Youth in Asia

*** Me Talk Pretty One Day: Disc 2 ***
01. Twelve Moments in the Life of the Artist
13. The Learning Curve
17. Today's Special
18. City Of Angels

*** Me Talk Pretty One Day: Disc 3 ***
01. A Shiner like A Diamond
04. [...]
07. See You Again Yesterday
12. Me Talk Pretty One Day
15. Jesus Shaves

*** Me Talk Pretty One Day: Disc 4 ***
01. The Tape Worm Is In
03. Make That a Double
05. Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa
08. 21 Down
09. The City Of Light in the Dark
11. I Pledge Allegiance to the Bag
14. Picka Pocketoni

*** Me Talk Pretty One Day: Disc 5 ***
01. I Almost Saw This Girl Get Killed
05. I'll Eat What He's Wearing (Live)
08. Bend Over and Say "Ah" (Live)
10. Precious Moments (Live)
19. Poems about Dogs (Live)
20. A Million Bubbles (Live)
21. Credits

*** Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim: Disc 1 ***
01. Introduction
02. Us and Them
05. Let It Snow
06. The Ship Shape
10. Full House
13. Consider the Stars

*** Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Disc 2 ***
01. Monie Changes Everything
07. The Change in Me
11. Hejira
12. Slumus Lordicus

*** Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Disc 3 ***
01. The Girl Next Door
07. Blood Work
11. The End of the Affair
12. Repeat after Me

*** Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Disc 4 ***
01. Six To Eight Black Men
04. Rooster at the Hitchin' Post
09. Possession
11. Put a Lid on It

*** Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim: Disc 5 ***
01. A Can Of Worms
03. Chicken in the Henhouse
08. Who's the Chef?
10. Baby Einstein
14. Nuit of the Living Dead
18. Credits

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packaging stinks, but material is great, January 10, 2007

By	A. Jordan (East Taunton, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I agree that the packaging is awful-half of the CDs have no listing of tracks anywhere in the packaging; the other half have listings on the CDs themselves (which makes it difficult to find a certain track). And the awful, cheap cardboard sleeves, which all look alike, doesn't help you to find the CD you're looking for. But if you're just putting them on your MP3 player anyway, what difference does it really make?

The material is hysterical. My favorite tracks are from "Me Talk Pretty One Day"-the self titled chapter and "Jesus Shaves." The live stuff is great too, especially the Carnegie Hall track "With a Pal like this, you don't need an enemy" (a live version of him reading this on Letterman can be found on YouTube-good stuff!).

This was one of my favorite Christmas gifts, the other one being David's sister Amy's new book "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence." If you're not familiar with "Strangers With Candy," you'll know her as the sister that loves to dress up and impersonate people. The one with the fat suit.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cheap repackaging of all works to date (2006), December 25, 2006

By	ChrisWN (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews

I first heard David Sedaris read The Santa Land Diaries on NPR a decade ago & became addicted to not only his stories, but his delivery too. I've picked up most of his books (even getting a few autographed), but never got around to actually getting them read by David himself. This CD set contains the exact same discs from all of the individual audio CD books that he has released up to 2006. If you don't have any of them & already know you enjoy both the stories and the way he reads his own stories, this is a pretty good deal to pick them all up at once. I won't go into a review of the content, since you can go into the individual books to read others' comments on them. I would give this set 5 stars, except that I docked a star for the packaging. It's as bare-bones as it gets. No literature or artwork to accompany it. Just a thin cardboard box containing 4 thin cardboard booklets, containing 5 CDs each. The booklets could have been designed better. They hold the disc vertically so you have to slide them up along the cardboard (scratching them in the process) to get them out. The last leaf holds 2 (one on top of the other) is particularly annoying since they don't fit very well and you have to get the top out to get to the one below. While it's nice to have so many discs fit into a small space, it would have been nicer to have a little bit sturdier and more scratch-proof packaging. The only information (besides the description on the outside of the box) on these is the label on the discs, so you have to pull out the cheap black booklets from the box (which has to be opened to pull out and is likely to fall apart from multiple uses) and pull out the cd's to see which book you are getting a cd from. There's also no guide to which story is on which disc of each individual book.