David Sedaris: The Land and Its People: Essays

The speaking portion of the event is now sold out, but you can join the waitlist above.

Additionally, there will be a signing line following the event that is free to attend.The speaking portion will end around 6:00PM and the attendees in the space will begin forming for the signing line. We will start an additional line outside 826 Broadway following around 7:00PM and will let folks into the space as soon as possible. Please note that there is no estimate for how long attendees will be waiting, David likes to take his time with each customer but will happily stay and sign for every person in the line.

Can’t make the event?

This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at [email protected] by May 16 to request.

Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact [email protected]

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In The Land and Its People, his collection following Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris reflects on what it means to be a foreigner, a brother, a lifelong friend.

He tries on the role of caretaker after his boyfriend Hugh’s hip-replacement surgery, and both succeeds and fails. He buys his sister a cape and discusses his brother with a jaded Duolingo bot. He walks dozens of miles with his friend Dawn and challenges her to eat a truck tire. Ever adding to his list of “Countries I Have Been To,” he rides a horse named Tequila in Guatemala, buys a bespoke priest’s cassock in Vatican City, and goes on safari in Kenya without taking a single photo.

There is sadness here—scrolling through his address book, he realizes how many dear friends are now deceased—but also delight: he revels in authors’ biographies, the malapropism that becomes a decades-long inside joke, and pair of well-made cotton underpants. He is bitten by a dog. A train passenger vomits in his face. A woman on the street late at night either sexually harasses him or doesn’t. Look how hard it is to be alive!
Throughout these essays—at once acerbic and tender, playful and profound—Sedaris shows how much there is to marvel at when you keep your head up and your eyes open, observing with warmth and curiosity this fascinating human species and the lands we inhabit.

Photo credit: Anne Fishbein

David Sedaris is the author of fifteen previous books, including Happy-Go-Lucky, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and Me Talk Pretty One Day. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Jonathan Swift Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.

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