David Sedaris

Book tour from America’s best-selling literary funnyman. The series ‘Meet David Sedaris’ on BBC Radio 4 has been hugely popular and this Christmas Eve just past saw him recite a specially recorded version of his famous ‘Santaland Diaries’. This covers a period in his life in which for two consecutive Christmases in the early 1990s, he was a Christmas elf at Santaland in the famous New York department store Macy's. These are the extracts from his diaries at the time and this story was given a rare outing on Radio 4. The Santaland Diaries drew David's writing to the attention of America and the World. He hadn't read them out loud for nearly twenty years!

The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that Sedaris is a master of satire, one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today. As one scribe put it, he could ‘’lift your spirits reading out the ingredients of a rice cake.’’