If you know me you know I like zombies. Imagine my surprise when I saw The Zombie Survival Guide on the table of books to buy at the David Sedaris reading last week! I'd always wanted to buy it but had hesitated several times. The woman behind the cash register said that he would be talking about the book so I bought it in hopes that maybe he'd sign it along with the copy of Holidays on Ice that I'd brought with me. Sure, it's kind of a weird request considering that he didn't write the Guide but I love zombies and the irony was too much. Zeyond the simple fact that I love zombies, it was also rather ironic that I went to the reading with my friend Jake. He also likes zombies and we occasionally have rather realistic conversations about the undead so it was very fitting that Sedaris had chosen this particular tour to support the Survival Guide.
The show was really great - everything he read was new to me and there's just nothing like hearing David Sedaris' voice reading his own stuff out loud. I loved the points where - when reading his journal entries - he would actually laugh at himself. That and his infrequent slip ups punctuated by an "oops" were so endearing. He's also one of the nicest celebrities I've ever met. I tend to get starstruck rather easily but I could have totally sat down and had coffee and conversation with this man. Zombie conversation, of course. And we had brief zombie conversation there at the table and you'll also see in the photo that he signed my copy of Holidays ("SantaLand Diaries" was the first piece I ever read by him and still my favorite) complete with a sketch of me getting away from a zombie.
To top it off he also signed my Survival Guide as if it were a gift, "Dear Emily, I hope you enjoy this as much as I do." So it was a great show completed with living dead treats - yum!
