Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9780316143479
ISBN: 0316143472
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Little, Brown and Company

"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 Rating:
Summary: I Couldn't Find the Humor!
Comment: Sorry, I must be missing a gene or two or three - cannot for the life of me understand why this book is supposed to be funny. Sedaris deals with the droll and mundane in life, and that's basically all the book is.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Sedaris is Sedaris
Comment: Sedaris is Sedaris in this wonderful collection of stories. One thing I like about this collection is that the author, who is about my age, is aging in his writing. As hilarious as his stories about his childhood and young adulthood are, he has become more introspective and quirky, just like the rest of us. His ability to look at and experience the world in everyday life, and present it to us through his eyes is as appealing as ever.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not up to Snuff
Comment: Fans of Sedaris will be disappointed. The trademark sense of humor is sorely missing, replaced by "touching" stories.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Stoo, Drop and Roll
Comment: When You Are Engulfed in Flames is filled with more of David Sedaris's essays on pretty much anything that crosses his mind. From his neighbor Helen to the boil on his lower back to wanting to see the dingo at the zoo. Sedaris dwells on his inadequacies to the point of sleep (the reader's). There are some humorous moments, but Sedaris focuses on the negative too much and the comic relief too little.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: interesting sense of humor, very funny
Comment: I'm a Sedaris fan - I think his sense of humor is very intellectual and hilarious. He makes fun of himself and gives his impression of the things going on around him - just really funny. I laugh out loud with this one.

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