When You Are Engulfed In Flames

About When You Are Engulfed In Flames

When You Are Engulfed in Flames is a collection of essays by bestselling American humorist David Sedaris. It was released on June 3, 2008.

Sedaris's sixth book assembles essays on trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, associations in the French countryside, buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina, having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane, armoring windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds, lancing a boil from his backside, and venturing to Japan in order to quit smoking. Little, Brown and Company issued a first-run hardcover release of 900,000 copies.

Sedaris was a guest on The Daily Show on Comedy Central on June 3, 2008. During the interview he recommends moving to Hiroshima, Japan for three months in order to stop smoking. This smoking cessation method, which cost the author $23,000, is the subject of the last essay of his book. He also tells of where he got the name for his book. It was the name of a chapter in a book he had found in a hotel room while in Hiroshima.