Every Book by Augusten Burroughs

This one had my head spinning for a few days, so if you have a crappy father, beware... this is one of his darkest books, not at all the funny Burroughs. This exposes some of what makes him a deep writer — I read it in only 2 days and I'm a very slow reader.

If you've already read Burroughs' Running With Scissors, this book will make more sense. It's not quite as raunchy or full of child abuse like Running, but it's still a good read if you enjoy a memoir about a dysfunctional adult.

The lesser-known, but equally harrowing (and funny) follow-up to Running With Scissors. Burroughs worked in advertising in the 1980s, as did I; his downfall was alcohol—in my circles, it was cocaine. But Burroughs fell harder than I ever did, and he’s assembled this astonishing book from the wreckage.

It was mesmerizing. I kept reading and reading, wondering how someone could possibly have lived a life like this!

This is a great novel about the vapid characters that work at a home-shopping television channel (think QVC). It's Burroughs' first novel and while it doesn't have the "heft" that his later writing carried, it's still laugh-out-loud funny.