THIS IS HOW: HELP FOR THE SELF
by Augusten Burroughs
Pan Macmillan, RRP $27.99
Let me say this: Augusten Burroughs’ previous works Dry, Magical Thinking and Running with Scissors are three of my all-time favourite books.
Not only have I devoured every one Burroughs has written, I have reread them and hunted down copies in second-hand bookstores for friends I’m visiting in other cities.
Imagine my disappointment to discover his latest work is harder to read than the instructions for a French-made telephone I recently bought.
This is How is in English – yet it may as well be in Ch’orti (the lost language of the Mayans) for the amount of sense it made to me.
While Burroughs attempts to provide his trademark dark humour to self-help topics such as how to deal with being overweight, single, overcoming shyness or riding in lifts, he comes across as the dull person you’d have nightmares about being seated next to on a plane.
The worst part is, he isn’t trying to be funny, he sincerely wants to help the reader. Burroughs readily admits in chapter one that self-help books are basically sanctimonious and insincere. Funny – it’s the only thing in this book I agree with.
