On a trip to Hiroshima, David Sedaris finds an informational booklet in his hotel room titled Best Knowledge of Disaster Damage Prevention and Favors to Ask of You. Thumbing through the book, he stumbles across a safety section titled “When You Are Engulfed in Flames,” a bizarre turn of phrase Sedaris liked so much that he used it as the title of his new collection of essays.

In line with his trademark memoir storytelling style, Sedaris’s sixth book guides the reader through the Larry David-esque awkward moment’s of his life, as well as the most domestic. While it isn’t Sedaris’s best, it’s an interesting departure from his usual nostalgic focus on his iconoclastic family. This collection examines his relationship and home life with longtime partner Hugh Hamrick, and reluctantly growing up… at the age of 50.

Not to worry — there are still some gems that involve his childhood and late teens. Stories like “The Understudy,” in which Sedaris recalls a particularly vulgar babysitter who demanded back scratches from he and his sisters using a plastic monkey-pawed apparatus. Or “Adult Figures Charging Toward a Concrete Toadstool,” a story that details his parents discovering and collecting extremely obscure art pieces. Both essays feature the kind of storytelling that Sedaris-heads have come to adore.

The aforementioned departure comes in stories like the incredibly sweet “Old Faithful,” in which Hamrick volunteers to lance a boil on Sedaris’s back while Sedaris reflects upon how he and Hamrick became a couple. “What really brought us together was our mutual fear of abandonment and group sex”. Or “Memento Mori,” an episode in which, after purchasing a human skeleton as a gift for Hugh, Sedaris finds himself regularly haunted by it and begins questioning his own mortality. Which leads to the final 83-page chapter, “Smoking Section,” in which Sedaris curiously moves to Japan to quit his 30-year smoking habit.

If you haven’t read Sedaris before, When You Are Engulfed in Flames is probably not the title to begin with (I’d suggest Naked or Me Talk Pretty One Day). Having said this, in his latest book, you will inevitably find pieces of yourself within Sedaris’s humorous yet self-deprecating prose. Those already converted to the cult of Sedaris can look forward to spending an evening or two catching up with a familiar friend.