A guy walks into a bar car and...From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved. Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy. With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post). Machine generated contents note: Dentists Without Borders Attaboy Think Differenter Memory Laps A Friend in the Ghetto Loggerheads If I Ruled the World Easy, Tiger Laugh, Kookaburra Standing Still Just a Quick E-mail A Guy Walks into a Bar Car Author, Author Obama!!!!! Standing By I Break for Traditional Marriage Understanding Understanding Owls #2 to Go Health-Care Freedoms and Why I Want My Country Back Now Hiring Friendly People Rubbish Day In, Day Out Mind the Gap A Cold Case The Happy Place

A revisionist storyteller provides his mad, hilarious versions of children's favorite tales in this unique and riotous collection. A long time ago, people used to tell magical stories of wonder and enchantment. Those stories were called Fairy Tales. Those stories are not in this book. The stories in this book are Fairly Stupid Tales. I mean, what else would you call a story like "Goldilocks and the Three Elephants"? This girl walking through the woods smells Peanut Porridge Cooking. She decides to break into the Elephants' house, eat the porridge, sit in the chairs, and sleep in the beds. But when she gets in the house she can't climb up on Baby Elephant's chair because it's much too big. And she can't climb on Papa Elephant's chair because it's much much too big. So she goes home. The End. And if you don't think that's fairly stupid, you should read "Little Red Riding Shorts" or maybe "The Stinky Cheese Man." In fact, you should definitely go read the stories now, because the rest of this description just kind of goes on and on and doesn't really say anything. I stuck it here so it would fill up the page and make it look like I really knew what I was talking about. So stop now. I mean it. Quit reading this. Open the book. If you read this last sentence, it won't tell you anything. Signed, Jack (Narrator) Up the Hill Fairy Tale Forest 1992 Story List: - Chicken Licken - The Princess and the Bowling Ball - The Really Ugly Duckling - The Other Frog Prince - Little Red Running Shorts - Jack's Bean Problem (including Giant Story / Jack's Story) - Cinderummpelstiltskin (Or The Girl Who Really Blew It) - The Tortoise and the Hair - The Stinky Cheese Man SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: It has been determined that these tales are fairly stupid and probably dangerous to your health. Edition MSRP: $17⁹⁹ US (ISBN 0-670-84487-X)

It's early autumn 1964. Two straight-A students head off to school, and when only one of them returns home Chesney Yelverton is coaxed from retirement and assigned to what proves to be the most difficult and deadly - case of his career. From the shining notorious East Side, When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense. Or how about... when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game. Oh, all right... David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo. Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire. (front flap)

When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first. Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other... My Sister, the Serial Killer is a blackly comic novel about how blood is thicker - and more difficult to get out of the carpet - than water...

Author of sales sensation If We Were Villains returns with a story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave. Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom? Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks—and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought. Atmospheric and eerie, with the ensemble cast her fans love and a delightfully familiar academic backdrop, Graveyard Shift is a modern Gothic tale in If We Were Villains author M. L. Rio’s inimitable style.