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When You Are Engulfed in Flames
When You Are Engulfed in Flames

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

By
David Sedaris
David Sedaris
By
David Sedaris
David Sedaris
2008 • 323 pages

Ratings44

Average rating3.9

15
Book InfoReviews4Editions9Lists31

"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).*

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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Genre

  • LGBTQ

Reviews

Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

paullu
Paul

I gave up on this. I love Sedaris, but this is by far my least favorite book of his. I couldn't get past page 125ish.

April 26, 2015
kellyerin
Kelly

Very smart and funny writing. I couldn't wait to read the next seemingly wacky story about Sedaris' life.

I think my thoughts on this book can be simply summed up in one amazing Sedaris quote...
“You think you know everything about your faithful follower, but it turns out that he's actually an orphaned fox who can change his shape at will. It was he who spoke my favorite line of the evening, five words that perfectly conveyed just how enchanting and full of surprises this Kabuki business really is: ‘That drum is my parents.'”

February 20, 2009
carla
Carla

first read in 2008

April 7, 2014
juliaem
Julia

Honestly, not my Sedaris fave. I think I had read one too many of the stories when they first appeared in the New Yorker. But Sedaris' mediocre is most people's side-splitting, so I certainly enjoyed the read.

October 1, 2008

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