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David Sedaris -- When You are Engulfed in Flames
8 out of 10

NPR listeners are familiar with David Sedaris, the American writer/humorist who is a frequent contributor to NPR's This American Life. Sedaris has been a frequent resident of the New York Times Best Seller List with his collections of essays. Born in Binghamton, New York and raised in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, David Sedaris has experienced more in a lifetime than many people could hope to experience if they lived to be three hundred years old. He has four sisters, including comedienne Amy Sedaris, who is best known for her comedy series Strangers with Candy, and a brother. In his lifetime, David Sedaris has dealt with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a speech impediment, juvenile Tourette's syndrome, smoking addiction, drugs, homosexuality, hitchhiking and the difficulties of performance art.

What makes Sedaris unique as an author is that he writes almost completely from personal experience. He doesn't embellish his stories for the sake of humor, but recounts his life experiences with a frankness that adds to their humor. He also has a tendency to poke fun at his own shortcomings, whether it's the obsessive-compulsive disorder that, as a child, required him to leave his seat in school multiple times a day to touch his nose to a door or lick a pencil sharpener, or the way that he sometimes screams like a girl at the sight of a mouse or spider.

In 2001, he released Me Talk Pretty One Day, his second collection of essays. The book garnered widespread critical praise and even won him the Thurber Prize for American Humor and he was named "Humorist of the Year" by Time magazine. The book is separated into two parts, the first focusing on his childhood in suburban Raleigh and his time working odd jobs in New York. Even though his childhood was a major subject in his first book, Naked, this collection didn't overlap on any subjects, and the content remained fresh. The second half of Me Talk Pretty One Day focused on his move to France with his boyfriend Hugh, and often draws its humor from his insights on the trouble of living in a foreign country when you barely speak the language at an elementary level.

When You are Engulfed in Flames draws much of its content from Sedaris' adult life. There are a couple essays regarding his childhood, but for the most part the content is set in and around his post-college years. The book is filled with situations that anyone can relate to. Dealing with a troublesome passenger on a plane who you just happen to be seated next to, buying drugs in a trailer in North Carolina, making coffee when the water is turned off, moving to Hiroshima, Japan for three months to quit smoking...who hasn't dealt with common topics like this?

While When You are Engulfed in Flames is successful in making the reader laugh at all of the outrageous experiences of David Sedaris' life, it does drag at times. A couple of the essays take a more serious tone that is more tedious than anything else. Halfway through these, you find yourself simply skimming in order to get to the next funny part. They aren't frequent, but the slow sections are there nonetheless.

High Point: "What I Learned," a graduation address written for Princeton University, is a hilarious social commentary on the pretentiousness of higher education.

Low Point: "The Man in the Hut," while funny at times, becomes more serious for the latter half and starts to drag.