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Overview
From the million-copy bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection yet.
This book is approved for consumption by those seeking pleasure, escape, amusement, enlightenment, or general distraction. This book is not approved to treat disorders such as eBay addiction or incessant blind dating. In studies, some people reported inappropriate, convulsive laughter, a tingling sensation in the limbs, and sudden gasping. Fewer than 1 percent reported narcolepsy. Doll collectors may experience special sensitivity, as may discourteous drivers, candy-company brand managers, and nicotine-gum users. This book has been shown to be especially helpful to those with parents, grandparents, life partners, and incontinent dogs. People with dry, cracked skin have responded well to this book, as have people with certain heart conditions. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this book, until you know what effects it may have on you. This text is contraindicated in those suffering from certain psychiatric disorders, including---but not limited to---readers afflicted with anhedonia, which is the inability to experience pleasure. Ask your doctor about Possible Side Effects.
Synopsis
From the million-copy bestselling author of Running With Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most intimate and transcendent collection of stories yet
Publishers Weekly
Nostalgia, entertainment and humor are possible side effects of listening to this audiobook. Burroughs delivers a slew of reflections about both serious and mundane aspects of his life. His style of delivery fluctuates from piece to piece so one is never sure what the theme or moral is until he finishes. When he's not highlighting the idiosyncrasies of humanity or his own eccentricities, he romanticizes life in New York City, plots John Updike's death and expounds upon the love of his partner or pets. Though his performance keeps listener's attention, it's far from stellar. He fluctuates with character accents. He voices all of his women in the same tone and quality. His overemphasis with expletives often detracts because it's not usually necessary; expletives will stand out on their own. His youthful voice does help legitimate the stories in that the experiences shared need vibrancy to imply truthfulness. Light and endearing with the occasional somber thought, this audiobook takes hold of listeners from the beginning and carries them through adventures and mishaps that prove worth the trip. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 20). (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Nostalgia, entertainment and humor are possible side effects of listening to this audiobook. Burroughs delivers a slew of reflections about both serious and mundane aspects of his life. His style of delivery fluctuates from piece to piece so one is never sure what the theme or moral is until he finishes. When he's not highlighting the idiosyncrasies of humanity or his own eccentricities, he romanticizes life in New York City, plots John Updike's death and expounds upon the love of his partner or pets. Though his performance keeps listener's attention, it's far from stellar. He fluctuates with character accents. He voices all of his women in the same tone and quality. His overemphasis with expletives often detracts because it's not usually necessary; expletives will stand out on their own. His youthful voice does help legitimate the stories in that the experiences shared need vibrancy to imply truthfulness. Light and endearing with the occasional somber thought, this audiobook takes hold of listeners from the beginning and carries them through adventures and mishaps that prove worth the trip. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover (Reviews, Feb. 20). (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Library Journal
Fans of the irreverent, often caustic Burroughs will revel in his latest collection of memoir-essays, which, like those in Magical Thinking, run the gamut from appealing to appalling. The author of Running with Scissors (a soon-to-be-released motion picture) offers another no-holds-barred look at his eventful life, including his troubled childhood, his former career in advertising and current career as a memoirist, his love life, his struggles with alcoholism, and his great love of animals. An absolutely brilliant writer as well as a gifted narrator, Burroughs easily draws listeners into descriptions of the everyday (vacations, business proposals, doctor visits) and his life-altering events, such as the day he took his dog to the ASPCA because his alcoholism prevented him from properly caring for the animal. While public libraries need to be aware that several of Burroughs's essays would merit the equivalent of an NC-17 rating, this outstanding work deserves serious consideration for an Audie and/or Grammy Award. Highly recommended. Beth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib, OH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
Popular memoirist Burroughs (Running with Scissors, 2002, etc.) again turns his whirligig neuroses into something resembling a book. In this general updating of life in the world of bestsellerdom, the author pulls together a string of autobiographical essays and sketches that consistently entertain, even if they don't always enlighten. You can almost see the child from a disturbed home dancing frantically about in these pages, doing anything to ward off the darkness. It brings a grimace with the laughter. Like many creative people who don't know what to do with themselves, Burroughs once worked in advertising, an experience summed up in a particularly gruesome piece about working on a Junior Mints campaign. "I hadn't been on the account for one week," he writes, "and already the phrase mint threshold was being bandied about." While the ad game is good for several anecdotes, Burroughs always spirals back to the morass of his inner world, which seems at times an endless parade of worry and addiction. After years of drinking and drugging, the author appears to have managed the transition from those substances to other dependencies: junk food, QVC, chain hotels, nicotine gum. Each of these provides grist for his self-mocking, Sedaris-like humor. Later chapters journey into territory more familiar to his fans: the tempestuous landscape of his childhood, complete with a manic-depressive mother and a brother afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. The book peters out amidst less successful pieces of this sort; oddly, the less serious his subject matter, the more meaningful and heartfelt his prose. Readers will likely disregard the post-James Frey author's note indicating that "some of the eventsdescribed happened as related, other were expanded and changed." As if we didn't know. Wears a little thin by the end, but still no mean effort. Sometimes, a genuine laugh or 20 is enough. First printing of 500,000From the Publisher
Augusten Burroughs is:
"One of the most compelling and screamingly funny voices of the new century."
--USA Today
"Deliciously perverse."
--People
"Endearingly neurotic...he hooks you into a story better than anybody."
--Entertainment Weekly
"Outrageously magical...surprisingly thoughtful."
--The Atlanta Journal-Constitution