Augusten Burroughs

Don’t try to play the “my family are freaks card” with Burroughs. You ain’t gonna win, unless of course you too had monthlong family sleepovers on the front lawn or a physician-assisted faked suicide attempt to get excused from school forever. In his New York Times best-seller, Running with Scissors, Burroughs recounted a bizarre childhood that included being adopted by his mom’s shrink at age thirteen. In Dry: A Memoir, we get a wicked look at the author’s boozy life as a Manhattan advertising hotshot, followed by forced rehab. Good times. Burroughs’ oddball view of what would be an otherwise gloomy life does actually invite laughter. In other words, feel free to guffaw at someone else’s painful history if you attend this reading. Really, go ahead, he won’t mind. U of M Bookstore, 300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis; 612-625-6000; Bound To Be Read, 870 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 651-646-2665