Curt's Read-Bag: When You Are Engulfed In Flames

Title: When You Are Engulfed In Flames
By: David Sedaris (Little, Brown, 323 pp.)
Concerning: Sedaris’s usual brand of sardonic anecdotes and reminiscences, including an 80+-page essay/diary about how he quit smoking while spending three months in Japan.
Special Video Quote!:

Verdict: Amusing. Sedaris seems to have hit a challenging point in his career as a rich, famous memoirist: what does he write about, having all but exhausted his family stories and personality quirks? When You Are Engulfed In Flames features surprisingly many scenes involving air travel or cab drivers. Plus, after the micro-controversy about Sedaris embellishing some of his essays, I take some of his details with a grain of salt; did he really use the Stadium Pal on an airplane or at a book signing? Hmm. But he’s nevertheless an extremely funny and gifted writer, and sometimes he’ll echo my own feelings about some subjects, like giving people Christmas suggestions for yourself: “Hugh thinks that lists are the easy way out and says if I really knew him, I wouldn’t have to ask what he wanted. It’s not enough to search the shops, I have to seach his soul as well.” The extended essay/diary "The Smoking Section" works particularly well: perhaps he should simply become a travel diarist.