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When You Are Engulfed in Flames | 
 enlarge | Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy Used: $11.00
You Save: $14.99 (58%)
New (75) Used (34) Collectible (16) from $11.00
Rating:  239 reviews
Sales Rank: 125
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316143472
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9780316143479
ASIN: 0316143472
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 234 more reviews...
 Quirky, original, true June 9, 2008
Julie Neal (Sanibel Island, Fla.)
179 out of 193 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.
Everyone but my mom should read this book! June 5, 2008
Joni E. Madsen (Audubon, IA)
70 out of 81 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.
After the new age weekend it was time for something different... June 24, 2008
Tanya Gunby (Seattle, WA)
3 out of 7 found this review helpful
I had just gotten back from a weekend spent in hippie-town, doing the massage thing. I picked up this book and was relieved that something so wrong could be so right. I spent the next few days picking the book up when I could.
David Sedaris can have the "dark humor" moments, but there are also quite a few times where I'm really struck by his kind side.
Really good, but an evolution of Sedaris. July 22, 2008
M. Strong (Milwaukee, WI USA)
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
I've read David Sedaris' other books, and I wouldn't recommend doing it in public unless you enjoy being stared at by the people around you as you miserably fail to stifle your disruptive laughter. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" proved to be particularly disabling to read: I frequently laughed to the point of uselessness.
I had a couple of similar experiences while reading "Engulfed", but it was different than his past books too. I would say it's just as good as his previous works, but has a slightly different aim than they did. What Sedaris always does so well is keenly analyze things that most of us experience but immediately dismiss in the press day to day life. Instead of moving on, Sedaris lingers and recounts his experiences for his reader or listener with quirky insights that frequently remind you of your own fleeting thoughts or emotions in similar situations.
To me, that is the underlying appeal of David Sedaris. Typically, his insights are uproariously funny. In this case, they're a little more poignant and chuckle-inducing, but the experience of recognizing my own foibles in Sedaris' skewering of his own foibles is still the same treat it's been in the past.
Highly recommended for fans of Sedaris and for anyone who likes off-center insights on the world.
Funny and moving stuff July 24, 2008
S. Smith (Dayton, Ohio, USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
One of the things I love most about David Sedaris's work is that one essay can send me running to the bathroom because I'm laughing so hard and the next can move me to tears. Not every essay has had much meaning for me but the majority are far better written than most of what passes for "literature" and best sellers these days. No one else has captured family moments, both poignant and hysterically funny, as well as Mr. Sedaris and I can't wait to see and hear him read his work aloud the next time he is in Ohio.
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