When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Author - David Sedaris ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from Little, Brown and Company was reviewed on 29-Aug-2008.

Search ISBN:0316143472 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. When You Are Engulfed in Flames Reference Book. Classifications : Essays Humor Entertainment Subjects Books General Humor Entertainment Subjects Books General Essays Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Hardcover Binding (binding) Refinements Books Printed Books Form . Click the following link to view the cover of When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

Related topics: Essays. Humor. Entertainment. Subjects. Books. General. Humor. Entertainment. Subjects. Books.

1) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. Normally I love David Sedaris and can´t wait for his books to come out, but this one was a disappointment. It´s very dark and moody and it took me forever to finish it. Not his best work.¤

2) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. David Sedaris
Little Brown and Co., 2008
ISBN: 9780316143479
3 Stars
Not my style...
David Sedaris style is understated humor. When Your Are Engulfed In Flames is a collection of his short stories and essays. I have not read any of Mr. Sedaris´ previous books. I did find a few humorous moments, but nothing that made me laugh aloud or even brought a little chuckle. However, that does not make Sedaris a bad writer; it makes his style not my style.


¤

3) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. I liked this book. It was funny & clever, especially the author´s struggle to quit smoking. I suggest you also buy the author´s best work, "Naked".¤

4) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. I did enjoy most of the essays. Some of my favorites involved a bad babysitter who fools the adults, but not the kids (the Understudy); a raspy-voiced next door neighbor named Helen (That´s Amore); an annoyed wife on an airplane flight (Solution to Saturdays Puzzle); and an invented talking skeleton (Memento Mori); to name just a few.

To any fan of David Sedaris´ essays this is a treat. It is so nice to have them available in one place.¤

5) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. Older, wiser, smarter and meaner, Sedaris (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, 2004, etc.) defies the odds once again by delivering an intelligent take on the banalities of an absurd life. The author´s faithful fans probably won´t be turned off by his copyright-page admission that these pieces, most seen before in the New Yorker, are only "realish." They feel real, whether Sedaris is revealing his troubling obsession with a certain species of spider or describing a lift from a tow-truck driver who kept saying things like, "yes, indeedy, a little oral give-and-take would feel pretty good right about now"-the ring of truth adds to the book´s horrified-laughter factor. The author still draws from the well of familial tragicomedy in pieces that dissect his parents´ taste in modern art ("Adult Figures Charging Toward a Concrete Toadstool") and their reactions to what he wrote about them in his first book ("fifty pages later, they were boarding up the door and looking for ways to disguise themselves"). Most of the essays, however, chronicle expatriate life in England, France and Japan with his long-suffering and improbably talented boyfriend Hugh. Sedaris positions himself as a hapless Bertie Wooster to Hugh´s Jeeves, lazily allowing his partner´s mother to clean their apartment ("I just sit in a rocker, raising my feet every now and then so she can pass the vacuum") and marveling at Hugh´s interest in, well, doing things. A highpoint is "All the Beauty You Will Ever Need," which starts as a rant about his boyfriend´s ludicrous self-sufficiency ("Hugh beats underpants against river rocks or decides that it might be fun to grind his own flour") but twists into a sharp declaration of lovethat´s all the more touching for its lack of sentimentality. Just when Sedaris seems to have disappeared down the rabbit hole of ironic introspection, he delivers a cracking blow of insight that leaves you reeling.

Also highly recommended is Dry: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs.¤

6) Hardcover Book When You Are Engulfed in Flames by Little, Brown and Company. "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



¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 26-Sep-2008, 03161434729780316143479, 250-320-200-720-820-6X1-8

When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Book, Image © Little, Brown and Company

Search: Little, Brown and Company, Book Posters, Book Art