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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 New: $13.53
You Save: $12.46 (48%)
New (76) Used (29) Collectible (17) from $12.99
Rating:  257 reviews
Sales Rank: 98
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
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
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Few left in stock - order soon. Code: H20081114205835T
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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 252 more reviews...
 Quirky, original, true June 9, 2008
138 out of 152 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
70 out of 78 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.
Sedaris - Equal and opposite of Chicken Soup June 30, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I was introduced to David Sedaris when a relative of mine was in a coma for 5 months. I was told that someone was coming to the hospital, sitting beside the bed and reading from the "Chicken Soup" series of books. I was horrified as I'd been told that a person in a coma can still hear and I couldn't fathom the torture my loved one must be in - unable to move or communicate and being subjected to a torture akin to mental water boarding. Immediately I put the word out for some other essay series that could be read to him that would nullify the damage being done by this well intentioned person. David Sedaris was suggested several times and this is how I met him (literarily speaking).
I have "Engulfed" in the audio version that's read by the author. My favorites from Sedaris are always when he relates tales about his boyhood and goofy family. There's plenty to be found here. In this compilation I found the new bike essay interesting, the crotchety lady neighbor hilarious, but the whole smoking cessation portion was so close to home that it was a bit unnerving. He went to Japan, I went to Mexico. It worked for him, not for me...
I highly recomend this book - you can never go wrong with Sedaris (even if your in a coma)...bg
He uses his "out-loud" voice for our entertainment July 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's sort of a "no-win" situation to try to review an author like David Sedaris. I ACHE to be as funny as he is, but sadly, it's just not there. The scenarios he describes are so familiar, and some of his observations are things that you might have thought, but could never articulate.
The best thing I can say about his humor, (and that of his sister, Amy Sedaris; man, to be at their Thanksgiving table!) is that most of their humor is just WRONG, and that's what makes it soooo gosh darn fun!
Dark and funny August 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love David Sedaris. This is the third of his books that I've read. It's not quite as funny as the others, but I don't think it's really supposed to be. His story about his neighbor Helen did make me laugh out loud for a very long time, though. My husband thought something was wrong with me. I had tears.
What I loved about his book more than the others is that I felt as if I knew David inside and out by the end. I felt as if I could go out to dinner with him and we'd be like old friends, catching up after all of these years. His writing is so endearing, which has to be hard to pull off, considering some of the topics. I love a man who loves spiders? How does that happen? But I do.
David also finds a way to write about being gay that easily crosses over. Straight boring moms such as myself will find all of his relationship stories interesting. In fact, when he writes about his relationship with Hugh, I found myself nodding, "Uh huh, been there David. Right on!" And he's so right about the exorbitant amount of time us straight people spend trying to figure out how gay sex takes place. (But why didn't you tell us David? You make fun of us for wanting to know, but then you don't satisfy our curiosity). His trials about quitting smoking are also enlightening and help me to better understand my friends who smoke.
The only criticism I have about the entire book is that I could have done without the line about a type of cracker tasting like penis. Hey I know what that tastes like, and I don't want that taste going anywhere near my crackers. Other than that, I love the book and highly recommend it.
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