When You Are Engulfed in Flames

published	June 3rd 2008 by Little Brown and Company
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0316143472 (isbn13: 9780316143479)
description	"David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is e...more [close] "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). Note: As per Publisher's Weekly, tentative titles for this collection have included Indefinite Leave to Remain and All the Beauty You Will Ever Need. [close]
date added	05-29-07 edit book

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | more...

discuss this book

topics	replies	last activity
Good read	3	11 days ago, 07:45PM

new topic

groups with this book

friend reviews (0)

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Best books of June, 2008

3 books | 3 voters

More...

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 5288)

James rated it:

07/02/08

Read in July, 2008

Eh.

That’s my review: eh.

With maybe a shoulder shrug.

Someone better read than I recently remarked something to the effect of, “Once you’ve read one David Sedaris book, haven’t you read them all?”

Yes.

And Kurt Vonnegut.

And several others. But that’s neither here nor there.

Sedaris’s recent book makes such a dismissive comment truer than ever. For readers familiar with Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, there...more Eh.

That’s my review: eh.

With maybe a shoulder shrug.

Someone better read than I recently remarked something to the effect of, “Once you’ve read one David Sedaris book, haven’t you read them all?”

Yes.

And Kurt Vonnegut.

And several others. But that’s neither here nor there.

Sedaris’s recent book makes such a dismissive comment truer than ever. For readers familiar with Holidays on Ice, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and Me Talk Pretty One Day, there is little Funny and Original to enjoy from When You Are Engulfed in Flames. And especially for readers of The New Yorker like myself, where most of the essays in this publication were initially published, there is a lot to be desired.

A few highlights include an explanation for why Sedaris does not believe in God: “Because I have hair on my back, and a lot of other people, people who kill and rob and make life miserable, don’t. A real God wouldn’t let that happen.” And his prediction that, “It’s safe to assume that by 2025, guns will be sold in vending machines, but you won’t be able to smoke anywhere in America.” With the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on D.C’s gun ban, Sedaris’s prescience is foreboding.

But what I found most interesting about When You Are Engulfed in Flames was the About the Author: “David Sedaris’s half-dozen books have been translated into twenty-five languages, including Estonian, Greek, and Bahasa. His essays appear frequently in The New Yorker and are heard on Public Radio International’s This American Life.”

It was the first sentence that intrigued me. There’s a good David Sedaris essay to be had from that line. Did David Sedaris himself write it? If not, but the editor did, why the importance on Estonian, Greek, and Bahasa and not the other 22 languages? Does translation into these three languages indicate a literary achievement of some sort? Is it a big deal for Estonians, Greeks, and Indonesians to be reading David Sedaris? While Microsoft Word’s spell check wants Bahasa to be Bahamas, Bahaman, Batas, Balas, or Banana, Bahasa is in fact spelled correctly. It is the native language of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, and therefore one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. So for David Sedaris to be available in this language is no small feat. Why then Estonian and Greek? And what are the other 22 neglected languages? Why are they less special?...less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

3 comments

Tracy rated it:

07/01/08

Read in June, 2008

As a major fan of David Sedaris I could not wait for this latest collection of essays and was overjoyed when I saw the promise of the Van Gogh painting on the cover, for what can top Sedaris, Van Gogh, and a smoking skeleton all mixed together?! A talking skeleton that says, “You are going to die.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this latest collection of essays that moved Mr. Sedaris from his wonderfully dysfunctional family and shifted the focus onto mortality and monogamy in middle age. For Sed...more As a major fan of David Sedaris I could not wait for this latest collection of essays and was overjoyed when I saw the promise of the Van Gogh painting on the cover, for what can top Sedaris, Van Gogh, and a smoking skeleton all mixed together?! A talking skeleton that says, “You are going to die.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this latest collection of essays that moved Mr. Sedaris from his wonderfully dysfunctional family and shifted the focus onto mortality and monogamy in middle age. For Sedaris fans still looking for stories about the sibs, they do make cameos in discussions about the numbers of children startled to death each year or selecting the proper sex periodical to display when dad comes to visit, but all in all, he seems to draw his inspiration from his relationship with Hugh and Maw Hamrick, who along with the rest of the Sedaris clan, and his own fear of death, provide just as much fodder for laughter, not to mention the “lost in translation” moments, from befriending a convicted sex offender in Normandy to his attempts to learn Japanese.

His transition from his childhood to finding his material in his relationship with Hugh has made his writing no less funny than ever, and he is still the only person I read that I truly laugh out loud both while reading and later recounting to others. I tried to tell someone the story of his Japanese haircut and was laughing so hard I couldn’t do it. But the best part of these stories is Hughes’s added one-lines to David’s questions that fully punctuate and complete the stories. On a train in Japan he observed a man in a black suit with matching black shoes wearing canary yellow socks, and he couldn’t take his eyes off them. “Hugh, I said. “Do you think I would look good in yellow socks?” He thought for a moment before saying, “No,“ this without a trace of doubt, as if I asked if I’d look good in a body stocking.”

I feel like I’ve grown up with David Sedaris and laughed my way across a few countries and continents with him and in and out of relationships. I love the transition into this new area of material that can still have us all laughing at ourselves and relationships and society in the same style and manner as his other books have but in a bit more macabre, “You are going to die, someday” sort of way, and if you’re lucky, you’ll find someone to remind you that you are going to die, who might just lance a boil for you, who might just go to Japan with you to help you quit smoking when you are “engulfed in flames”.

...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Schmacko rated it:

06/19/08

Read in June, 2008

I just finished the new David Sedaris book When You are Engulfed in Flames. Isn’t that his snappiest title yet?

This very funny man’s book of personal essays only sporadically reaches the wacky heights of his other book. I laughed quite a few times, but there were very few stories I wanted to read to my friends over the phone (a mark of distinction I’ve held for his earlier books)

There are a few stand-out, hilarious stories here. One about Sedaris’ neighbor in NYC will surely b...more I just finished the new David Sedaris book When You are Engulfed in Flames. Isn’t that his snappiest title yet?

This very funny man’s book of personal essays only sporadically reaches the wacky heights of his other book. I laughed quite a few times, but there were very few stories I wanted to read to my friends over the phone (a mark of distinction I’ve held for his earlier books)

There are a few stand-out, hilarious stories here. One about Sedaris’ neighbor in NYC will surely be added to the pantheon of “Wacky People David has Met.” Her name is Helen, and this octogenarian curses like a sailor, cooks disgusting food that she presents as a prize to only certain neighbors, and basically belittles and insults everyone.

And Sedaris certainly has a gift for turning a funny phrase, calling Scandinavia “a cold and forsaken place where people stay indoors and plot the death of knobs.”

What seems to often be missing here are Sedaris’ wild flights of panic, paranoia, and fancy we’ve witnessed in the past. When the author’s in top form, he can throw out the most outrageous and unorthodox views of the world and then tightly pull them back together into a single, hilarious yet honest picture. Instead we get charming stories of losing his lover in a foreign zoo, or of that same lover proving his love by lancing David’s boil (this latter story has all the possibility of a great Sedaris yarn, but he misses the chance to panic and become all hypochondriac and run to the library and then comically explain the medical phenomenon of a boil to us. Instead, Sedaris describes the smell – gross- and then waxes poetic about his boyfriend’s offer to lance it.)

The last story of the book – a longer tale of Sedaris quitting smoking – has its moments but is largely all over the place; a trip to Tokyo, language classes, Japanese sight-seeing, and tricks on avoiding the cancer stick. It never adds up, and coincidentally, it’s probably the worst thing Sedaris has written. It’s still intermittently funny, but it doesn’t through me into a fit of paroxysms, which I know Sedaris is capable of.

He’s still a good writer, better than almost everyone else out there, but this isn’t his best material.

...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Alana rated it:

06/16/08

bookshelves: 2008june

Read in June, 2008

While I certainly won't call this the best David Sedaris collection that you can purchase for yourself, I will say that any David Sedaris is worth reading -- and thus, my star rating. It would probably be more like three and a half if Goodreads did half stars the way LibraryThing does, but ah well.
The observation I have for this collection is that with Mr. Sedaris giving up drinking, drugs, and smoking... his stories seem to be a bit more tame. Much more focus on his boyfriend Hugh or storie...more While I certainly won't call this the best David Sedaris collection that you can purchase for yourself, I will say that any David Sedaris is worth reading -- and thus, my star rating. It would probably be more like three and a half if Goodreads did half stars the way LibraryThing does, but ah well.
The observation I have for this collection is that with Mr. Sedaris giving up drinking, drugs, and smoking... his stories seem to be a bit more tame. Much more focus on his boyfriend Hugh or stories tinged with a bit of melancholy. The NY Times mentioned the story about his parents' art collection, which is perhaps one of the better crafted stories. My favorite, however, is called "Keeping Up" -- which talks about couples arguing on vacation and features Mr. Sedaris rehearsing his "I'm leaving you" speech to his boyfriend after Hugh's fast walking leaves Sedaris lost and alone in a zoo in Sydney.
In general, it's nice to see Hugh making more of an appearance in Sedaris' stories. Sedaris' previous volumes have focused so much on his siblings that when you realize how long he and Hugh have been together, you're a bit surprised that it's taken Sedaris this long to mine his significant other for material. In the past, he's popped up every now and then, but he's a much more substantial figure in this collection. As with Sedaris' other works, though, one can't help but wonder how his friends and relatives deal with having details of their lives published and sold. Unlike his parents and sisters, though, Sedaris consistently paints Hugh in a good light and one can't help but wonder how Sedaris can function without Hugh at times in this collection.
In any case, while you might want to wait to purchase a paperback version, this collection does have several good chuckles. I might not have been struggling for breath as I have once or twice in the past ("Six to Eight Black Men" comes to mind), but I still think that anyone who enjoys Sedaris should miss this most recent offering....less

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Nate rated it:

06/02/08

bookshelves: glbtfriendly, traveltales

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: Sedarians

I didn't care much for Sedaris' last book, Dress your family in corduroy and denim. It felt forced, his embellishments more absurd to the point where I felt it was obvious which events actually happened and which were invented to make the story more interesting.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames was calmer in tone, more believable and felt less deadline inspired. Most of the stories revolve around the author and his partner, as opposed to the Sedaris brood - Gretchen, Lisa, the Chicken and, of...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

add a comment

Maggie rated it:

06/16/08

Read in June, 2008

With this, his most recent collection of sardonic essays inspired by his life, I am officially starting to worry that David Sedaris may be running out of ideas.

Undoubtedly, fans of Sedaris will eventually pick up his newest collection. Unfortunately, fans of Sedaris are already long-since familiar with his family, his boyfriend Hugh, and his humorous struggles to learn the language while living in France. And since When You Are Engulfed in Flames includes several essays about his family,...more With this, his most recent collection of sardonic essays inspired by his life, I am officially starting to worry that David Sedaris may be running out of ideas.

Undoubtedly, fans of Sedaris will eventually pick up his newest collection. Unfortunately, fans of Sedaris are already long-since familiar with his family, his boyfriend Hugh, and his humorous struggles to learn the language while living in France. And since When You Are Engulfed in Flames includes several essays about his family, his boyfriend, and his struggles to learn the language while living in a foreign land (Japan this time, but even still), I was left with the unmistakable feeling that Sedaris was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Furthermore, all of the essays in this collection have already appeared in either The New Yorker or This American Life, so for hard-core Sedaris fans there's probably not a single new piece to be found.

For those who haven't already read the essays in this collection, they are standard Sedaris - witty, dry, the mundane turned humorous. Like the Van Gogh on the cover, some of the stories here are downright creepy - Sedaris' retelling of his brief stint in a morgue, the story of his awkward friendship with a Normandy neighbor who turned out to be a pedophile, and the one where he recalls various pervy experiences gained while hitchhiking to name a few, and reading these is more of a uncomfortable experience than a humorous one. Certainly, there are some gems to be found, and "The Smoking Section" where he writes about his attempt to stop smoking by moving to - of all places - Tokyo was, for me, the most enjoyable. But even still, I felt like I had heard it before. Like the novelty had worn off a bit.

But this isn't to say I didn't enjoy reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames. It may be spotty, but for my money spotty Sedaris is still better than a lot of the crap that's out there. It's just that we're often hardest on the ones we love the most, you know?...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Erin rated it:

06/15/08

Read in June, 2008

I was so excited when I saw the new David Sedaris book because I am an avowed fan of all things Sedaris and am kicking myself for not seeing him for a third time at Barnes and Noble, and that I'm not sure I can see him when I move up to Rochester. But, even having read some of these stories when they were published in the many magazines he writes for, they were equally endearing and hysterical.

One of the other 'Good Reads' reviews before starting this book, and was struck by the idea that t...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Jamie rated it:

06/24/08

Read in June, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Oh how could it be anything but five stars? I got to see David Sedaris read in San Jose earlier this year. He read the bit about Helen and a few others that didn't make the cut. People are always saying how he's twice as funny when you hear his voice, but I'm not sure I always agree. Not that I didn't love the reading--I did, one of the best times I've had in my life, actually, but in terms of NPR readings, sometimes I think his voice is distracting. I mean, yeah, it's high pitched and brea...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Allison rated it:

06/29/08

recommends it for: weirdos like myself

Here's an example of this glorious new set of Sedaris stories:

(Page 213)

"attachment. There were nights that first summer when I'd get out of bed at 3:00 a.m. and wander into my office with a flashlight. Everyone would be wide awake, but it was always April that I singled out. If I thought about her a hundred times a day, it seemed only fair that she thought about me as well. My name, my face: I didn't expect these things to register, but in the way that a body feels the warmth of t...more

Like this review? yes

1 comments

Kirsten rated it:

06/12/08

Read in June, 2008

It actually hurts a little to give When You Are Engulfed In Flames only 4 stars. I judge Sedaris' works by how many times I feel compelled to read parts out loud to my husband and/or laugh out loud. If I use that rating system, Me Talk Pretty One Day is definitely 5 stars, and this new collection of essays, while wonderful, is a pretty solid 4 star piece. Some of this may be circumstantial for me: I went to hear David Sedaris read in October '07, so I had heard bits and pieces of some of thes...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

Brian rated it:

06/06/08

Read in June, 2008

After reading Sedaris' previous collection, I began to suspect that he had mined all of the material he could from his family and the earlier hard times he experienced. It appeared he was now left with the task of finding hilarity and poignancy in the life of a rich, celebrated author. "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" confirms that his days of dressing as an elf, picking apples, and hitch-hiking cross country with an incomplete quadriplegic are long gone. In their place we are left...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

add a comment

Jane rated it:

06/09/08

Read in June, 2008

When I typed the first sentence of this review, I accidentally substituted "undertaining" for "entertaining"; and I corrected it, but the word just wasn't as honest as the typo had been. When You Are Engulfed in Flames is undertaining. I wish it were possible to give it three and a half stars: three stars seems too cold for an ultimately witty set of tales, yet four stars implies more enjoyment than I actually experienced.

The tales are calm and incisive. Sedar...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Imogen rated it:

06/12/08

Read in June, 2008

When I am not reading David Sedaris, I am thinking: David Sedaris, man, there is a popular guy whose books are kind of just always around and not very interesting. But when I *am* reading him, I'm always like, there are five or six absolutely brilliant punchlines in every one of this guy's books, and the other parts are, y'know, enjoyable enough.

I think it's a testament to my always forgetting how much I like him that I guess I've read all his stuff, but I absolutely never think of him as a...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

1 comments

Ken rated it:

06/21/08

Read in June, 2008

Most of this collection of stories you may have read in various periodicals over the past few years (Esquire, New Yorker, GQ) but even so its still worth reading them again and being reminded that the world is not necessarily as we see it. Through the eyes of David Sedaris everything is more keenly observed and definitely much funnier. There doesn't appear to be any distinctive direction to "When You're Engulfed in Flames" other than its a broad sampling of experiences told by someone ...more

Like this review? yes

2 comments

Sarah Montambo rated it:

06/16/08

bookshelves: bio-memoir-diary, covers-i-love, funny, shorts

Read in June, 2008

Dang, I was a bit trepedatious going into this, and why? Has he ever let me down? Well, OK, "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" was a bit of a letdown, and not just the cover, which was really a letdown on Chip Kidd's part. Kidd completely redeemed himself with this cover, though, which is a thing of beauty.

The thing is, I was scared of not loving this because:
a) I didn't love Lynda Barry's latest, and I thought that was impossible.
and
b)I had read some reviews that sai...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

15 comments

Heidi rated it:

06/26/08

Read in June, 2008

While I liked this book a lot, it might be my least favorite David Sedaris book. I really enjoyed the story about the woman who he live with in New York City, and I enjoyed the final section about when he quit smoking. But, after digesting it for a little while, I think what I liked so much about him before was that he seemed really ordinary. His stories about his life were real and I would think, "that could happen to me". Of course, it wouldn't happen to me because I would not choose...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Beth rated it:

06/26/08

Read in June, 2008

David Sedaris has nearly killed me twice. First, while my husband and I were listening to an audio CD of "Me Talk Pretty One Day"; we were in the car en route to a movie and laughing as we were, we veered into the wrong lane of traffic. The second time we were on our way to a weekend in Asheville and traversing the highways of western North Carolina. I was six weeks pregnant with my daughter, suffering from horrible morning sickness and listening to "Live At Carnegie Hall." I...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Brad rated it:

06/26/08

Read in June, 2008

As an author, David Sedaris is so much cooler than you or me, that I feel like somewhat of a moron commenting on his work. Kind of like standing with God on the top of a majestic mountain, overlooking nature in all its raw splendor, and you, overwhelmed by the absolute beauty of it all say, "Gee, nice work." God: "Of course it is nice work! What else would it be? Boy I'm so glad it meets your standards. So glad that I lived up to your expectations!" And even if you find somet...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Mary rated it:

06/25/08

Even as people rush out by the thousands to purchase the new book by NPR darling and New Yorker enfant terrible, the needling has already begun: he's mined all of his material, Hugh isn't as funny as Lou, Lisa, and the Rooster, and what if he exaggerated his stories?

On the first point, yes, he has possibly run low on stories about his family, but this new collection certainly isn't short on new stories to tell about, you know, his life as a grown-up.

On the second, it's true that I experience...more

Like this review? yes

1 comments

Eris rated it:

06/25/08

Sedaris is back, and he is... tamer than ever! Wait, you might not think that works, but it does. If you have followed him on his life journey of essays about the present and the past, this is an important installment, for this is the first time he truly talks at any length about his long long long time partner, Hugh.

Hugh's presence is welcome, for his sensible self balances out Sedaris' whimsical and oftentimes self centered approach to life. This makes everything come into focus.

There...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 264 265 next »

book data (includes all editions)

avg rating (all editions): 4.09 (1450 ratings)
avg rating (this edition): 4.09 (1443 ratings)
number of reviews: 627

recommend it | blog it

popular shelves

to-read (3166)
currently-reading (1782)
humor (45)
nonfiction (28)

title link
avg rating
small image
med image
large image

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

discuss this book

groups with this book

friend reviews (0)

lists with this book

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 5288)

book data (includes all editions)

blog this book

popular shelves