When You Are Engulfed in Flames

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book.
Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" (Seattle Times).

Praise for When You Are Engulfed in Flames:

"Older, wiser, smarter and meaner, Sedaris...defies the odds once again by delivering an intelligent take on the banalities of an absurd life." --Kirkus Reviews

This latest collection proves that not only does Sedaris still have it, but he's also getting better....Sedaris's best stuff will still--after all this time--move, surprise, and entertain." --Booklist

Table of Contents:

It's Catching
Keeping Up
The Understudy
This Old House
Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?
Road Trips
What I Learned
That's Amore
The Monster Mash
In the Waiting Room
Solutions to Saturday's Puzzle
Adult Figures Charging Toward a Concrete Toadstool
Memento Mori
All the Beauty You Will Ever Need
Town and Country
Aerial
The Man in the Hut
Of Mice and Men
April in Paris
Crybaby
Old Faithful
The Smoking Section

Customer Reviews: Read 264 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Quirky, original, true June 9, 2008
147 out of 161 found this review helpful

Reading a David Sedaris short story is like watching the author think. Each one is told as a stream of consciousness that somehow ties together beautifully in the end. This collection includes some laugh-out-loud essays, and others that are touching and poignant. All are interesting and so original they are obviously taken from real life.

If you're not familiar with him, Sedaris is the Dave Barry of the National Public Radio set. I've been a Sedaris fan for a long time through NPR's "This American Life." This book is like a collection of the best of those quirky radio essays. (I also have the audio CD set, a 9-hour, 8-disc marathon that plays like an NPR fundraising marathon without those annoying pleas for cash.)

The stories are filled with memorable characters. Irritated Becky, who sits next to Sedaris on a plane flight and inspires incorrect answers in Solution to Saturday's Puzzle. Gravel-voiced Helen, who lives next door to Sedaris and is the unlikely heroine of That's Amore. Sedaris' sister Amy, the owner of a magazine called New Animal Orgy in Town and Country. Woven throughout the essays is the fast-walking Hugh, Sedaris boyfriend, who demonstrates true love by lancing a boil in Old Faithful.

Not all the essays are mass appeal (my husband, who is not a big NPR listener, hated the first one but loved the third) but I think there's plenty of good stuff in here to please just about any thoughtful adult reader. There is plenty of sex and language, however, so it's not for your pre-teen or Aunt Betsy. But for most anyone else who wants a good laugh, it's a must-read.

5 out of 5 stars

Everyone but my mom should read this book! June 5, 2008
72 out of 80 found this review helpful

I have been waiting for a new David Sedaris book for a long time. I read the entire book yesterday afternoon and I could not stop laughing. His descriptions, dialogue, and demented details are uniquely Sedaris. This book did not disappoint; I knew what I was getting into the moment I read through the table of contents. Some critics are saying that there is nothing new here, blah, blah, blah. What do they want from a David Sedaris book? Romance? Epic Adventure? YA Fiction? I am a huge fan of Mr. Sedaris (David, not Lou), and his essays on his life leave me laughing. The section on smoking was not only funny, but very truthful. I could taste the menthol while reading. Very descriptive-very hilarious! Thank you David Sedaris.

4 out of 5 stars

Bracing and funny....like a cold martini thrown in your ex's face June 5, 2008
71 out of 87 found this review helpful

A very enjoyable read, with a couple of pieces that may be among Sedaris' very best. It does however, feel like there are couple of essays that should have been left out of this collection-pieces that did not add to the book as a whole, or seemed too similar to each other. I do think that "Solution to Saturday's Puzzle" is one of the great pieces of humorous writing, up on a level with Wodehouse's "Clicking of Cuthbert," which it resembles in almost no way. Frankly, the book is worth it for the giggles and guffaws to be found in that story alone, the rest of the collection is icing on the literary cake (though perhaps occasionally spread a bit too thick).
Buy this book and enjoy the sharp hilarity of our dreary lives...and if you like it, you might want to try Marc Acito's new novel. He's another one of our wittiest writers.

3 out of 5 stars

Mellowing With Age June 26, 2008
58 out of 65 found this review helpful

Okay, so it's funny. (ish). There were probably a total of six pages that gave me the kind of squirt milk out of your nose laugh that I love. The rest were just mild chuckles that were spread further along than usual with a Sedaris book. i can't say I found it disappointing, I just wanted to bellyache a bit more. The only conclusion I can come up with after finishing the final longest essay about him quitting smoking, is that like everyone else he's growing older, maturing, and feeling a sense of responsibility. While this made for a sweet and somewhat poignant conclusion, I couldn't help but feel like some of his comedic acid was mellowing with age.

3 out of 5 stars

I'll crash the party. June 4, 2008
52 out of 71 found this review helpful

Like someone mentioned previously, David Sedaris, is indeed going on a whirlwind tour: a twenty nine cities in twenty nine days tour and then on to perform at thirty three venues in thirty three days. With such a busy schedule one begins to ask, how does he find the time? The answer to that is simple when you just rehash published essays into a new book - so fans of Sedaris have, most likely, already read this book. Much like Sedaris' 2004 bestseller: Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim his new work can be heard on NPR's "This American Life" or read in the "New Yorker."

The best way to describe When You Are Engulfed in Flames would be to say David Sedaris has already used his best material. While the first time around most of his stories were very funny, the most I could muster was a smile, the second or third time - several stories were downright unappealing. All in all it's not a bad book if you are new to the humorist styles of Sedaris - most likely it'll be an entertaining read. If you've been a long time fan, nothing new here - just relive old memories. But if you are a long time fan, this book can't compete with Me Talk Pretty One Day

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