Theft by Finding: Diaries: Volume One

Most diaries - even the diaries of great writers - are impossibly dull, because they generally write about their emotions, or their dreams, or their interior life. Sedaris's diaries are unique because they face outward. He doesn't tell us his feelings about the world, he shows us the world instead, and in so doing he shows us something deeper about himself.

In his diaries, he's recorded everything that has captured his attention - overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and with them he has honed his self-deprecation and learned to craft his cunning, surprising sentences.

Now, for the first time, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world in Theft By Finding. This is the first-person account of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet.

Written with a sharp eye and ear for the bizarre, the beautiful, and the uncomfortable, and with a generosity of spirit that even a misanthropic sense of humour can't fully disguise, Theft By Finding proves that Sedaris is one of our great modern observers. It's a potent reminder that there's no such thing as a boring day - when you're as perceptive and curious as Sedaris, adventure waits around every corner.