When You Are Engulfed in Flames [Hardcover]

David Sedaris' managed to write a stream of consciousness set of reminiscences which were hilarious, sometimes upsetting, brave and often thought provoking. He talked about the kind of embarassing or uncomfortable moments that most of us try to forget right after they've occured with both humour and honesty. His section on how he quit smoking was brilliant and really very insightful about the whole subject of addiction. I think what I liked so much about this book apart from just how funny it was is that it was filled with insight without ever becoming pompous. All in all, a really good book that makes you laugh out loud, think about difficult topics, and read far later in the night than you meant to because it's so hard to put down.

This is the first David Sedaris book I have read so I cannot compare it his other works, but having read it I will definitely seek out other books he has written. I found this an enjoyable meditation on the foibles of the the author's life, family and loves. It was like peeking behind the curtain of someone's private life and feeling okay with laughing about what you find there. Irreverent and very funny with moments of seriousness and even slight tinges of sadness. I book I would recommend to friends.

Laugh at yourself and the whole world laughs with you. It's hard to write humorous essays that stand the test of time. Will Rogers realized that and just read the newspaper to audiences while adding an occasionally wry quip to get huge laughs. Put those messages into a book, and they wouldn't have lasted.

I haven't heard David Sedaris perform in person (which he does as readings), but I'm told he's marvelous. If you have had that pleasure, you will undoubtedly hear his voice, know his timing, and see his expressions as you read this witty, self-deprecating book. I suspect that such an imagined performance would easily turn this into a five-star book.

Proust waxed poetic about his memories of a madeleine (a shell-shaped cake in the France of his youth) in stream of consciousness prose. Sedaris does the same thing for a painful boil on his derriere, his horrible inability to learn new languages, and his desire to show a little more plumpness in his derriere. The results are equally memorable . . . but much more amusing in the case of Sedaris.

Sedaris likes to put together mosaics of seemingly unconnected memories that when combined show a different image and send a different message. It's a little like a Chuck Close portrait.

Like the best humorists, he takes us into her personal life . . . into the kinds of details that few of us would openly share with the public. In exchange for yielding his privacy, he helps us see ourselves in his experiences. Who hasn't struggled with a foreign language with embarrassing consequences? Who hasn't wanted to be a little more in some aspect of their lives? Who hasn't had trouble getting rid of a bad habit?

These themes and more are explored in well-written, interesting style that lacks only an overriding sense of meaning (other than that we are all a mess) to be important prose. Some of them are hilarious, breaking into images of burlesque skits in your mind. Others are more poignant than funny, using wry humor. But he mostly doesn't stretch; rather, he expresses who he is and how he sees life.

As a former smoker, former heavy drinker, former drug user, and current homosexual with a fascination for feeding spiders, some aspect of his life will intersect with yours. But at the same time, he has exotic tastes (spending a lot of time in Normandy, learning not to smoke in Tokyo, and traveling from city to city reading his essays while staying at the finest hotels) that will make his lens different than yours. You'll never see the world the same way, as Proust changed our perceptions of madeleines.

Is it worth the trip? Yes, but I advise small reading doses. It goes down more smoothly that way.