David Sedaris wants to be better (at everything)

Fresh Air

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Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.3 • 36.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

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Summary

Humorist David Sedaris says the best part of reading his work to an audience is earning the laughs — or the groans. "A collective groan is fine with me," he says. Sedaris reflects on his Duolingo obsession, AI, and why he’ll continue writing and touring as long as he possibly can. His new book of essays is ‘The Land and Its People.’ He spoke with guest interviewer Sam Fragoso, host of the podcast ‘Talk Easy.’

Also, John Powers reviews two new mystery novels: ‘The End of the Sahara,’ by the Algerian writer Saïd Khatibi, and ‘An Enigma by the Sea,’ by Italian authors Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is fresh air. I'm Terry Gross. For over three decades, beloved humorist David Sedaris has chronicled the absurdities of modern life, including his own. He got his start writing about his short tenure at Macy's as Crumpet, a Santa Land elf, in an essay titled The Santa Land Diaries. When he first read the essay on NPR's Morning Edition back in
0:22.0	1992, it generated more tape requests than any other story in the show's history to that point
0:28.5	and turned him into an overnight sensation. He since published several best-selling collections
0:33.9	of personal essays, been awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and was
0:38.9	inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019. His latest book of personal essays,
0:45.4	The Land and Its People, cast Sedaris in several roles, devout brother, itinerant traveler,
0:52.0	grieving friend, and reluctant caretaker.
0:55.1	Sederis, who is now 69, writes,
0:57.6	I'm in the hard part of getting old, the part where everything irritates you.
1:02.2	The easy part comes a little later when my short-term memory disappears.
1:07.4	David Sederis spoke with guest interviewer Sam Fragoso, host of the interview podcast, Talk Easy.
1:13.8	David Sideras, welcome back to Fresh Air.
1:16.4	Thank you so much, Sam.
1:18.2	Your latest collection of essays, the land and its people, are pieces you've been reading on tour around the country, I think, for the last four or five years.
1:27.1	Does performing these pieces in front of an audience help you make them better? Yes. reading on tour around the country, I think for the last four or five years, does performing
1:27.7	these pieces in front of an audience help you make them better? Yes, the audience is my first
1:34.2	editor and they tell me everything I need to know. One of the new pieces I wrote, I was talking about
1:40.3	how frustrating it is to be in line behind someone who's buying lottery tickets.
1:45.9	I just hate it when you get there, and then the person in front of you is like, no,
1:49.5	that's 19-336.
1:55.4	On my deathbed, I'm going to want all that time back that I spent standing behind people buying lottery tickets.
2:02.2	And when the audience, let's say, for instance, when they cough, they tell me that I need to
	...

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