I have just finished reading WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES [Little Brown and Company, 2008] by this Sedaris fellow. What a hoot! I would usually pick up the book as I lumbered off to sleep and before long was in just the wrong state of mind for sleep: uproarious laughter. A new Clemens he's not really, but close. He really is not bitter enough to be Clemens. I think one thing about his style is his out honesty about his life and what happens to him and those he loves. There are limits of course. There is no sex, no politics and no discussion of religion. That is to say nothing that would offend his readers. So come one come all, all ye conservative republicans--who apparently buy books too--as well as liberal democrats--who have less money to buy books these days because of guys like McCain and Graham. and their Enron loophole. I know, I know . . . off topic.

Sowwy.

Anyway, I have to order the rest of his books and pronto too. Beginning with this list:

Barrel Fever (1994)
Naked (1997)
Holidays on Ice (1997)
Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)
Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (editor, 2005)
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)
Santaland Diaries & Seasons Greetings: 2 Plays (1998)
The Book of Liz (2002, with Amy Sedaris)
Audio recordings

The David Sedaris Box Set (2002)
Live At Carnegie Hall (2003)
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)
But in the mean time as the UPS man prepares to block my door with these boxes, I am comforting myself with his YouTube recordings which are just as much fun, only I wish they were technically more proficient. More than several are pretty static filled. There are the radio recordings I really love. You all need to go listen with me to these wonders at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Default.aspx



What a great idea for his kind of droll observations.

The Youtube presentations are amazing. I love the Santa in Holland pieces. This is so Sedarisish, a perfect example of what I love about his writing



Bear with me while I assemble the three parts of this reading.



Here is part three: