3 of 7
Lust & Wonder
304 pages; St. Martin's Press
"As a rule, if I am offered a choice between two things, I will take both and then run," Augusten Burroughs writes in his latest memoir. This time, the author of the modern classic, Running with Scissors, winningly chronicles the up-all-night start of his career (which replaces falling-down drunkenness), his dating blunders, his epic paranoia and his quest for abiding love. Burroughs lives without brakes, sure, but realizes that given a choice between lust and love, or between wildly ambitious dreams and a stable, comforting home, we all want to have it both ways. Burroughs' witty, dead-on observations about everything from hapless therapists to petty impediments to love (finding fault with the tiniest lines around a boyfriend's eyes) make every sentence an adventure. It isn't even a spoiler to say that there's a deliciously happy ending.
— Dawn Raffel