"Pee in your pants kind of funny"

I sound like I am touting Brightkite but I can't help but be curious as to what my fellow bkiters are reading when they mention their books :)

A few weeks ago I see that @bethesdasprite is reading David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames, a book that had been coming up in conversations often amongst my circle of friends. Norma (her real name) tells me that the book is "part biography, part memoir, encompassing everything from Sedaris' daily life in Paris to his three month sojourn in Tokyo". Norma once read his essays are "pee in your pants kind of funny" and after reading this book she agrees. This happens to be her first Sedaris book, an impulse buy at the airport to have a quick, easy ready during a long flight. In the past she's read his essays in The New Yorker or listened to him on public radio. Although she's never seen Sedaris live Norma has gone to every local performance of This American Life. "I hope they'll pay him enough to come on stage someday!"

Norma's "book-hound" of a cat, Mellon, with Sedaris' book.

At the time a few weeks ago Norma was reading Andrew Weil's "Healthy Aging". "I know, I know, shouldn't have mentioned that ...also trying to get through Eckhart Tolle's,"The Power of Now". I don't really get it but everyone else does, including Oprah's Book Club, so I'm trying . Really I am." Oh yes, another Tolle reader in the "Noses In Books" house. She recently just finished reading The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho and Here If You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup

Growing up Norma loved history and biographies, and this love has followed her to the present. Her favourite book by far was "Gone With The Wind", a romance novel no less! "I recall I had to get special permission from the school librarian to check it out because I was considered too young for such an "adult" book. Poppycock, it rocked and I loved it. " (I need to adopt the phrase "poppycock" into my lexicon...I mean, c'mon!)

Today her favorite books are all history and biographies but ironically her favourite book of all time is again a novel, Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. She HIGHLY recommends this book.

If she were to write a book it would definitely be a biography of some early American author, maybe Alcott, Hawthorne or Thoreau. Incidentally, she bought her present home in part because it was on Thoreau Drive. "I couldn't afford the historical home I wanted so this was the next best thing!"

When asked if she could read in another language she tells me that she's learning Spanish but far from fluent. Although Norma didn't like, "Love In the Time of Cholera," she does love Marquez's writing style. She found herself reading his sentences over and over again and out loud because it's such beautiful prose. Her long term goal in learning Spanish is to be able to read in Spanish and more fully appreciate authors such as Marquez.

Favourite spot to read? Generally reads at night in bed or in JJ's overstuffed gold chair.

On audiobooks: "I've never listened to an audiobook in my life until I read Sedaris's latest book. After reading, "When You Are Engulfed In Flames", I longed to hear his familiar dead pan voice, listen to his unique rhythm and experience his inflection and mimicry first hand; so, what did I do? I downloaded the audiobook on my Mac and listened to it in his own words. Listening to the unabridged version took a while,nine hours plus, but It was well worth the time. He brought his own words to life and I enjoyed it all the more the second time around."


What is your favourite Sedaris book? I would have to say mine are between Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Have you ever seen Sedaris live? To think that he is always 'performing' at UCLA yet I've yet to see him.