Reader’s Guide – Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
Questions to consider after reading Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls
1. Sedaris is often praised by critics for drawing his reader in, making his story your story too. Which
essays accomplish this? How? Why?
2. Why might Sedaris be #25 on Christian Lander’s blog/list of “Stuff White People Like”? How is race
addressed (or avoided) in Sedaris’s writing?
3. Sedaris admits to having an obsessive personality, and certain stories he tells illustrate this (i.e.
“Rubbish,” “Day In, Day Out”). How might this trait serve as an advantage to him as a writer?
4. The monologue “If I Ruled the World” is purposefully riddled with hypocrisy. Where do you see Cassie
making statements that disagree with her implied values?
5. Do you think the piece “Just a Quick Email” is more a comment on wealth or on animosity between
siblings? How can you tell?
6. The piece “I Break for Traditional Marriage” features a caricature of a political and/or social
conservative, whose views Sedaris questions throughout his writing. Why does Sedaris assume the voice
of Randolph the “traditional heterosexual”?
7. Before publishing “Author, Author” in the March 2009 issue, an editor at The New Yorker asked
Sedaris and his brother-in-law to verify some of the details of the story: Did they actually go to Costco?
Was the box of condoms really the size of a cinder block? When interviewed about the story, Sedaris
claimed it was his artistic license to exaggerate and asserted that when a box of condoms is the only
thing in your cart, it might as well be as big as a cinder block. How important is truth in memoir writing?
How much license should a writer get when writing autobiography?
8. After reading “Rubbish”, who would you say Sedaris has “turned into” since moving to West Sussex?
Is Sedaris becoming an outcast or an active member of his new community?
9. In “A Cold Case”, when Sedaris turns from the mystery of who stole his computer bag to the mystery
of who returned it, he embraces a new kind of optimism. Why, then, does he turn to mocking this Good
Samaritan, imagining him doing an impossible variety of charitable acts (258)?
10. How does Sedaris’s description of his experience with French doctors and dentists in “Dentists
Without Borders” distance him from the “oddities” of French culture?
11) Humor plays a large role in Sedaris' work. What, in your opinion, were some of the book's funniest
anecdotes?