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Whistle Stopper - When You Are Engulfed in Flames
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List Price: $25.99
Our Price: $12.40
Your Save: $ 13.59 ( 52% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9780316143479
ISBN: 0316143472
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2008-06-03
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: 2008-06-03
Studio: Little, Brown and Company
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Laugh out Loud
Comment: I started reading this book at work and actually laughed out loud. I kept passing it around to read certain parts. I love David Sedaris!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Was this supposed to be funny?
Comment: My mind must work differently than some of the other reviewers! I just didn't find much humor in this book and by midway through I was considering not even finishing it...which is a no-no for me. I was getting tired of his self-indulgence.
Customer Rating:
Summary: He's so funny ~
Comment: It was a joy to read. An author like Sedaris doesn't come along very often. This was the first of Sedaris' books I've read. It had me belly laughing! I plan on reading his other book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. It was #1 on the NYT bestseller list.
I bought When You Are Engulfed in Flames specifically to see how another person went about quitting smoking and that's the essay I read first. He gives me the inspiration, along with many laughs, to quit smoking
myself. I only wish we could all go to Japan to do
it. I think Mr. Sedaris has another bestseller on his hands.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Another great book by David Sedaris!
Comment: Once again, David Sedaris has written a hilarious account about his neurotic family and friends. I especially loved the story about the Stadium Pal. If you're looking for some huge laughs, you won't go wrong with this book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Really good, but an evolution of Sedaris.
Comment: I've read David Sedaris' other books, and I wouldn't recommend doing it in public unless you enjoy being stared at by the people around you as you miserably fail to stifle your disruptive laughter. "Me Talk Pretty One Day" proved to be particularly disabling to read: I frequently laughed to the point of uselessness.
I had a couple of similar experiences while reading "Engulfed", but it was different than his past books too. I would say it's just as good as his previous works, but has a slightly different aim than they did. What Sedaris always does so well is keenly analyze things that most of us experience but immediately dismiss in the press day to day life. Instead of moving on, Sedaris lingers and recounts his experiences for his reader or listener with quirky insights that frequently remind you of your own fleeting thoughts or emotions in similar situations.
To me, that is the underlying appeal of David Sedaris. Typically, his insights are uproariously funny. In this case, they're a little more poignant and chuckle-inducing, but the experience of recognizing my own foibles in Sedaris' skewering of his own foibles is still the same treat it's been in the past.
Highly recommended for fans of Sedaris and for anyone who likes off-center insights on the world.
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Editorial Reviews:
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"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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