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When You Are Engulfed in Flames | 
 enlarge | Creator: David Sedaris
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $34.98
Buy New: $15.45
You Save: $19.53 (56%)
New (36) Used (11) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  237 reviews
Sales Rank: 2679
Format: Audiobook, Unabridged
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 8
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.9 x 5.3 x 1.6
ISBN: 1600241824
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9781600241826
ASIN: 1600241824
Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Once again, David Sedaris brings together a collection of essays so uproariously funny and profoundly moving that his legions of fans will fall for him once more. He tests the limits of love when Hugh lances a boil from his backside, and pushes the boundaries of laziness when, finding the water shut off in his house in Normandy, he looks to the water in a vase of fresh cut flowers to fill the coffee machine. From armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds to the awkwardness of having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a sleeping fellow passenger on a plane, David Sedaris uses life's most bizarre moments to reach new heights in understanding love and fear, family and strangers. Culminating in a brilliantly funny (and never before published) account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection will be avidly anticipated.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 232 more reviews...
 seemed somewhat different...but not worse than others. October 4, 2008
This was a nice read--but, a little different from other David Sedaris books...not in a bad way. This book is about David's adult life...
Fabulous! October 2, 2008
I really was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. A few times, I laughed aloud- quite unusual for me if I am alone reading. Honestly, I was sorry when I finished the book-
 Huh? October 2, 2008
After seeing some of the reviews on Amazon, I'm wondering if I even read the same book as everyone else. Everyone touts David Sedaris as this great comedic writer, and raves that his stream-of-consciousness short stories are hilarious or poignant by turns. There was the odd humorous moment here and there, but I can't say I found this book "laugh-out-loud funny" at all. Mostly I found it to be a lot of pointless rambling in a person's mind...which is probably fairly realistic, but not particularly interesting to me. Maybe I'm just not cut out for the short story style of writing.
don't make assumptions October 1, 2008
to those of you reviewing this book and other David Sedaris books, please don't assume as some of you have noted, that your older Aunt, mother or grandmother shouldn't read this for fear of being shocked. Come on now, getting older does not mean one's sense of humor is diminished.
The book is funny, as are all his books and yes even us old women get it!
a catharsis of resignation September 29, 2008
David Sedaris is a writer who appreciates the finer things in life. The finer things we either ignore or simply don't see on a day-to-day basis. Throw in a dripping glob of neuroses and an erudite air of resignation and you too can arrive at the astute observations he so dutifully illustrates in his latest book, When You are Engulfed in Flames.
I think of Sedaris as an unconventional connoisseur of sorts. From sweat angels to the acumen of easily procuring dishwashing jobs, Stadium Pals, flaming mice, husbandry for spiders named "Big Chief Tommy", confronting airplane irritants, and finally to "finishing" smoking while learning Japanese, his musings evoke a nostalgia for times and things past never yet experienced.
This particular collection of essays centers around movement. Specifically regarding travel, Sedaris shares his experiences either en route to or upon arrival of the multitude of destinations to which he's traveled, some foreign, some domestic, all bizarre. Whether it be Japan, Thailand, France, the West Coast, Chicago, North Carolina, New York or wherever-have-you, his stories are ironic in that they all focus not on his destination, but rather the inner processing of his immediate surroundings, most notably his melancholy paranoia and courageous cynicism. It's more about the people he meets and his subsequent detachment from the normal workings of the world, not just the places he visits. It is the journey apparently, not the destination that matters. Sedaris' latest book is sublimely resigned, a comforting read for when the good times are indeed literally killing you.
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