MAGICAL THINKING True Stories

Augusten Burroughs, bestselling author of DRY and RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, offers a new collection of humorous essays searching for signs of intelligent life in his universe and, usually, not finding it. Magical thinking, according to psychologists, is the belief that one exerts more influence over life events than one actually does, and if magical thinking is a malady, then Burroughs has it. Reading with delicious irony, Burroughs explores the outrageous side of life--his life. There's the hilarious account of Augusten, star-struck teen actor, getting cut from a TV Tang commercial because he wants to "emote" and a seriously bizarre encounter by an older Augusten with an undertaker in a funeral parlor. Burroughs reads well; his perspective is witty, and his essays, appealing and agreeably shocking. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: FEB/ MAR 05]