The Land and Its People Essays

David Sedaris

eBook - 2026

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 friend...s 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... more