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When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Book Summary InformationAuthor: David Sedaris Edition: Hardcover Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2008-06-03 ISBN: 0316143472 Number of pages: 336 Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of When You Are Engulfed in FlamesBook Review: Made me a fan of the author Summary: 5 Stars
I had never read anything by David Sedaris until a student
mentioned his latest book, WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN
FLAMES . . . she said it had been a big help to her when she
quit smoking . . . so because of my interest in that topic, I
immediately went out and got a copy--and am glad that I did.
Sedaris is an American humorist, author and radio contributor . . . he
has written several bestsellers, all of which have been collections
of his essays.
WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED concludes with a longish piece
about the author's attempts to quit smoking . . . that was what
I read first and doing so enabled me to develop a better understanding
of the smoker's mentality . . . in particular, this passage caught my
attention:
* When I look back on my many years of smoking, the only real regret
I have is all the litter I generated, all those hundreds of thousands
of butts crushed underfoot. I was always outraged when a driver
would empty his ashtray onto the asphalt. "What a pig!" I'd think. But
he only did in bulk what I did piecemeal. In a city you tell yourself
that someone will clean it up, someone who wouldn't have a job
unless you dropped that butt onto the sidewalk. In that respect
you're good, you're helping. Then too, it never felt like real litter,
like tossing down, say, a broken lightbulb. No one was going
to cut his foot on a cigarette butt, and because of its earthy
color it pretty much disappeared into the landscape, the way a
peanut shell might. This made it "organic" or "biodegradable" --one
of those words that meant "all right."
That made me think about why others never realized this fact . . . but then
again, maybe they will after reading this book.
Other parts had me laughing, such as when he talked about fashion:
* In 1976 my glasses were so big I could clean the lenses with
a squeegee. Not only were they huge, they were also green
with Playboy emblems embossed on the stems. Today these frames
sound ridiculous, but back then they were actually quite stylish. Time
is cruel to everything but seems to have singled out eyeglasses
for special punishment. What looks good now is guaranteed to embarrass
you twenty years down the line, which is, of course, the whole problem
with fashion. Though design may reach an apex, it never settles back
and calls it quits. Rather, it just keeps reaching, attempting to satisfy
our insatiable need to buy new stuff. Squinting is timeless, but so,
unfortunately, are the blinding headaches that often accompany it.
And then there was this observation that put a smile on my face:
* That's Business Elite for you. Spend eight thousand dollars on a ticket,
and if you want an extra thirteen cents' worth of ice cream, all you have
to do is ask. It's like buying a golf cart and having a few tees thrown in,
but still it works, "Golly," I say. "Thanks!"
As a result of reading WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED, I've become a
David Sedaris fan . . . I now look forward to reading future books by
him, but in the meantime, I plan to go back and read some of his
earlier stuff.
Summary of When You Are Engulfed in Flames"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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