Looking for something to keep your spirits up during the grey dreariness of winter? Want to cuddle up with a good book in front of the fireplace? Something to make you laugh so hard you cry? Get on Amazon and buy David Sedaris’s latest novel “When You Are Engulfed in Flames”.

Unlike Sedaris’s other novels, this one does not pull a lot of references from his childhood, but rather focuses on his midlife crisis. He moans “I’ve been around for nearly half a century,” adding, “In another 25 years I’ll be doddering, and 25 years after that I’ll be one of the figures haunting my Paris bedroom.” He doesn’t seem impressed with those 25 years, adding: “How had 9,125 relatively uneventful days passed so quickly,” he writes, “and how can I keep it from happening again?”

His exploration of morbidity is something most of us could never imagine going through -including spending 10 nights in a medical examiner’s office, and buying a human skeleton whom he believes speaks to him repeating “You are going to die.” But throughout the themes of death and dying, Sedaris keeps up his witty satirical humor. And during the times of the credit crunch, war, and the feeling of the world collapsing upon itself every day, there is nothing better than being able to let out a long drawn out laugh to a man whose childlike wonder of death leads him to dig up dead guinea pigs in his backyard.

Among the 22 essays in the book, he quits smoking by moving to Japan, feeds live flies to spiders in Normandy, and continues one of the most relatable things about himself: his feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. This is something we have all experienced at one time or another, be it struggling with a foreign language, or not knowing what to do in the case of an emergency in a foreign land.

Overall the book is charming and not near as dark as it may seem. Sedaris is truly one of the funniest men in the world right now, and his essays will continue to transcend cultures. He has been compared a mixture Jerry Seinfeld and Woody Allen, and comes from an entire family of funny people. (You do know Amy Sedaris don’t you?) Sedaris will continue to tour and write, coming up with more and more stories to pour over and laugh at during cocktail hour.