In “Adult Figures Charging Toward a Concrete Toadstool,” he mocks modern art by recalling some of the more gauche pieces of artwork in his parents’ home, including a garden gnome under a toadstool. He buys his boyfriend, Hugh, a skeleton as a gift (Hugh collects medical artifacts) and the skeleton ends up reminding him of his own death - taunting him daily. Sedaris has a way of taking something very mundane and day-to-day and transforming it into a larger metaphor, and doing it in a humorous manner. This long essay is more a journal of his experiences of trying to quit smoking, although it becomes more of a retelling of his experiences while briefly living in Japan. When You Are Engulfed in Flames takes its title from the final – and longest – essay in this collection, “The Smoking Section.” The title refers to something the author reads while in Japan – a bad translation of English, or “ Engrish” as it is sometimes called. He is the kind of writer whom I aspire to be who makes you laugh but also makes you think, and while you’re thinking, you say to yourself, or maybe you say out loud, “oh, I see what you did there, Mr. He is a humorist, but a higher caliber humorist, someone who’s well-read and well-traveled and, well, … smarter than you.

When you read David Sedaris, words like “wry” and “witty” and “highbrow” go through your mind.

When you re engulfed in flames