I wonder who doesn’t like David Sedaris’ stuff.

I first read Me Talk Pretty One Day in my early twenties and I remember nothing of the book other than the fact that it left me laughing out loud alone in my bedroom more often than not. Desperate for something to read before bed one night a few weeks ago, I grabbed his newest, When You’re Engulfed in Flames off Kevin’s bookshelf. I gave Kev a hardcover copy for his 34th birthday last year. He never read it -hmph- so it sat collecting dust until I rescued it from its otherwise grim fate of hanging out with lesser books for the rest of time.

I’ve been on a reading kick lately, devouring anything I can get my hands on. I’m not sure why this is – it might be the length of my commute to and from work, or my need to tire myself out before bed by working my eyes and mind for a few minutes. It might also be that there is something so lovely about reading a good book poolside, beachside, parkside, in the summer. I go in phases with reading and I’m on the crest of the wave right now, joyfully taking on anything and everything from People Magazine to excerpts from the Power of Now to the instructional manual for my (dead) camera. I finished the new book by Heather Armstrong (of Dooce.com), It Sucked And Then I Cried, in a matter of days, then I had to read Animal Farm for a Harvard Sailing Team project, and the moment I finished it, I rediscovered Sedaris. God bless him.

I flew through When You’re Engulfed in Flames, which I enjoyed very much. It was just as hilarious as is his earlier books and intriguingly more mature in some ways. I particularly enjoyed the last section of the book, a long chapter entitled, “The Smoking Section” all about his lifelong relationship with cigarettes and his various attempts to quit smoking. Apparently he and his boyfriend traveled to Tokyo so Sedaris could quit for good. He needed to shake up his routine to help with the process so they moved to Japan for three months. As you can imagine, Sedaris captures the experience of being an American who lives in France and visits an Asian country for a quarter of a year with such dry wit and innocent cynicism that I experienced rolling laughter for almost the entire chapter. I keep pulling the book out to show to friends a particularly delighful passage where he transcribes the choppy, erroneous English text written on so many advertisements or book jackets he encountered in Tokyo. So, so funny.

When I finished Flames I didn’t want to leave the world of David Sedaris so I marched over to my bookshelf and found one I’d already read, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and decided to reread it. I’m already half way through the book and loving every second of it. I think I’ll move onto Naked next, which I’ve actually never read, and maybe Barrel Fever after that.

It’s not just his brilliantly clever writing that draws me in, but also his self-declared status as the Screw-Up, the Underdog, the Smart-but-Broke, Drug-Addicted Mama’s Boy who can never quite get it right. I can relate to a lot of those qualities. I also love to read about all the weird and awful things he’s done throughout his life to earn a paycheck and get by. I think most of us can relate to that. It’s inspiring, in a way, to learn the checkered history of this guy who would have you believe you ought to invite anyone else to your Christmas Party, and to realize that he’s still made himself into an incredible success. I’m sure he didn’t imagine his life would turn out this way when he was begging for change at stock car races as a kid.