I read When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris because I love him! I think he's really awesome. I've heard him speak and love it when he does something on This American Life or other radio programs.
This one is another collection of random stories and thoughts by the author. It also focuses on living in both Japan when he's trying to quite smoking, in New York and in France, so it's your usual mix of life stories by Mr. Sedaris. One of the best stories in the book is when he goes into the medical examiner's office, and they're looking at corpses, and it's just lovely, the comments he makes where the examiner just won't laugh and just looks at him strangely, and we get to enjoy his peculiar comments.
I've read all of David Sedaris' books, and they seem to get better as he goes along. I didn't find I laughed out loud as often; in some ways the stories were interesting but not hilarious so that it -- in some ways it was a little lackluster compared to some of the stories in Naked, I think. I think people enjoy David Sedaris so much that they don't want to criticize him, and the funny thing is some of his writing is so discombobulated, where the beginning of a chapter has nothing to do with what's at the end of the story, so in some ways, I think he gets away with kind of sloppy writing because he is entertaining.
It's a definite read for anyone who likes David Sedaris, who enjoys the witty look he has of the world, and anyone who enjoys humorous writing.
I'm gonna give it four out of five stars because I don't think it's the funniest book that David Sedaris has written, but it's definitely entertaining.
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