Barrel Fever and Other Stories is a 1994 collection of short stories and essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The first section consists of pieces clearly labeled as short fiction and the second half contains autobiographical essays, a distinction that is not made in his subsequent books. The most famous of the essays is "SantaLand Diaries", the essay that made Sedaris famous when he read it on National Public Radio in 1992. The essay tells of his experiences working as an elf named Crumpet at Macy's. The other is "Diary of a Smoker", which was made into a 13-minute film shown at Sundance Film Festival by Matthew Modine. The book was on bestseller lists in Chicago and San Francisco. Source: Wikipedia (en)