Wallet Monster...The Hip Place to Find Your Wallet

 Location:  Home» Apparel » Essays » When You Are Engulfed in Flames  
amazing read  bestseller  comedy  david sedaris  humor  

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

enlarge enlarge 
Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book

List Price: $25.99
Buy New: $11.75
You Save: $14.24 (55%)



New (71) Used (34) Collectible (19) from $11.00

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 222 reviews
Sales Rank: 68

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2

ISBN: 0316143472
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9780316143479
ASIN: 0316143472

Publication Date: June 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Similar Items:

  • A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
  • I Was Told There'd Be Cake
  • Leave the Building Quickly: True Stories (P.S.)
  • Bright Shiny Morning
  • Snuff

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
"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






Customer Reviews:   Read 217 more reviews...

1 out of 5 stars boring   September 8, 2008
Annette Schilling (USA)
We purchased this to listen to in our car on a long trip and it put us to sleep. Very corny and boring.


1 out of 5 stars I Couldn't Find the Humor!   September 7, 2008
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
Sorry, I must be missing a gene or two or three - cannot for the life of me understand why this book is supposed to be funny. Sedaris deals with the droll and mundane in life, and that's basically all the book is.


5 out of 5 stars Sedaris is Sedaris   September 7, 2008
Gayle Pritchard
Sedaris is Sedaris in this wonderful collection of stories. One thing I like about this collection is that the author, who is about my age, is aging in his writing. As hilarious as his stories about his childhood and young adulthood are, he has become more introspective and quirky, just like the rest of us. His ability to look at and experience the world in everyday life, and present it to us through his eyes is as appealing as ever.


2 out of 5 stars Not up to Snuff   September 7, 2008
P. Hall (gulf coast of florida)
Fans of Sedaris will be disappointed. The trademark sense of humor is sorely missing, replaced by "touching" stories.


3 out of 5 stars Stoo, Drop and Roll   September 6, 2008
Mary Longorio (Orem, UT)
When You Are Engulfed in Flames is filled with more of David Sedaris's essays on pretty much anything that crosses his mind. From his neighbor Helen to the boil on his lower back to wanting to see the dingo at the zoo. Sedaris dwells on his inadequacies to the point of sleep (the reader's). There are some humorous moments, but Sedaris focuses on the negative too much and the comic relief too little.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic