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    This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
    This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
    This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
    Audiobook6 hours

    This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.

    Written by Augusten Burroughs

    Narrated by Augusten Burroughs

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    If you're fat and fail every diet, if you're thin but can't get thin enough, if you lose your job, if your child dies, if you are diagnosed with cancer, if you always end up with exactly the wrong kind of person, if you always end up alone, if you can't get over the past, if your parents are insane and ruining your life, if you really and truly wish you were dead, if you feel like it's your destiny to be a star, if you believe life has a grudge against you, if you don't want to have sex with your spouse and don't know why, if you feel so ashamed, if you're lost in life. If you have ever wondered, How am I aupposed to survive this?

    This is How.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateMay 8, 2012
    ISBN9781427221643
    Author

    Augusten Burroughs

    Augusten Burroughs is the author of Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking: True Stories, Possible Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table and You Better Not Cry. He is also the author of the novel Sellevision, which has been optioned for film. The film version of Running with Scissors, directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt, was released in October 2006 and starred Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening (nominated for a Golden Globe for her role), Alec Baldwin and Evan Rachel Wood. Augusten's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers around the world including The New York Times and New York Magazine. In 2005 Entertainment Weekly named him one of "The 25 Funniest People in America." He resides in New York City and Western Massachusetts.

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    Reviews for This Is How

    3.5/5

    196 ratings30 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I doubt anyone is going to get thin or quit drinking after reading this, but it's a compelling read about insights gained through hard experience. The advice at times is flippant but presented with a generous tone that seems to assume the reader is a smart and capable person. If only actual self help books were so well written.
    • 4/5
      This is a heartfelt, funny and beautiful memoir/advice book. Solid, insightful thoughts on everything from breaking addictions to getting over the loss of a loved one. Beautifully written and memorable.
    • 4/5
      Well, Burroughs years of therapy have helped him. In many ways I found this book useful but it's not a "one size fits all". All people cannot overcome all things as Burroughs did. However, I did enjoy reading the book and identified with some of his techniques and learned a few new ones.
    • 1/5
      It's probably not fair of me to review this book, because I'm not a big fan of Burroughs' writing. I've read almost all of his books though, and thought this one looked interesting. I figured it would be a humorous spin on a self-help book, but it turned out to be an incredibly preachy self-help book. I thought Burroughs would use instances from his own life and share how he got through them, and he did… to a point. But the overall tone was condescending, like he knew what was best in every case. There were some good lines, some good lessons, but overall it wasn't what I was expecting, and not worth the read.
    • 3/5
      Listened to this as audiobook. Not bad, but a bit rambling. I wasn't sure who this guy was but the title was catchy and thought worth a shot. He seemed liked a psychologist but after I did some research turns out he is a writer with his big book being "Running with Scissors." Agusten did certainly put out some good advice on some topics here. He certainly has drawn upon his active life and experiences, particularly in his battle with alcohol and I thought his take on this was right on the mark. So worthwhile in full context to give it a shot, there should be something here of use for most folks.
    • 2/5
      A forceful, opinionated rant in short paragraphs and short sentences, mostly attacking self-pity. Funny in bits and often moving, but I marvel that the book was published because it's not really anything that special.
      p. 114: all of us are made not only of what we have but of what we lost.
      p. 122. The past does not haunt us. We haunt the past.
      p. 125 . . . you need a larger life. Something that can successfully compete with your past.
    • 4/5
      Augusten Burroughs just might be the most open person I have ever encountered in print or in person. His breadth of experiences with the dysfunction of other people is astounding! In this book he talks about how to get over it - what it may be. I am certain that I got better advice from this book than from any therapist - ever! I read the book and listened to it on audio, mostly because I enjoy Mr. Burroughs delivery. Cannot recommend it enough.
    • 4/5
      I selected the book, not because Augusten's other work is funny. I wanted to read his take on the different topics. He had some valid points and made me remember that cookie cutter is not for everyone. For example AA. Yes it's a fantastic program but it might not be for everyone. Not all recovering alcoholics can keep going to meetings and be reminded all the time about alcohol. When you have a medical diagnosis, when you are in the moment, it isn't as bad as that first initial diagnosis. I know that. I couldn't breathe when I was told I had breast cancer. But once that initial shock was over I was positive and got through it with flying colors. I would definitely take a look at this book and be open for a different perspective on things.
    • 5/5
      There is a great deal of excellent advice here. If you're looking for a "self help" book, this covers a number of topics and is probably one of the best ones I could give you.
    • 4/5
      self-help for the cynical and quite an interesting take on grief, and alcoholism, and 'why am i always single' mindsets.
    • 3/5
      I have not read many self-help books. Those that I did read were generally unhelpful, as their advice didn't apply to my problems. This book is different. Augusten Burroughs gives blunt and pragmatic advice on a wide variety of difficult topics, interspersed with autobiographical stories, statistics, and humorous observations.

      If I have a complaint it is that the advice in "This is How" isn't easy to put into action. For instance, one recommendation for unhappily single peope is to vary their routine; going to new places and doing new things in order to expose themselves to new potential mates. If that sort of bold experimentation was easy for people who want a romantic partner, they probably wouldn't be lonely and single in the first place. Other advice about alcoholism, grief, and depression is sometimes so harsh that it is difficult to read. The author has been hard on himself, and he recommends the same from his readers.

      Regardless, I recommend this book to anyone struggling with the problems listed on the cover who'd like some irreverent inspiration.
    • 4/5
      It is well-documented that many readers find it difficult to separate the author from the main protagonist, particularly whena novel is narrated in the first-persone mode. If so, then it is to be expected that such readers will assume that in autobiographical fiction, the first person narrator is most likely the author, with varying degrees of historical accuracy. This dilemma drives most authors to varying degrees of anger and madness, but not Augusten Burroughs. In fact, Augusten Burroughs plays a fantastic trick on his readership.Autobiographical fiction, sometimes called autofiction, is fiction based on or incorporating the author's own experience into the narrative. However, Augusten Burroughs novels and stories should perhaps better be characterized as "fictional autobiography", but not in the traditional sense of the description of the biography of a fictional character. Rather, Augusten Burroughs pretends to write about his own life, but the fictional persona that appears in his work under his own name is a fictional alter ego. Burroughs styles this persona as having a schizotypal personality disorder: as a result, readers are persuaded to believe that Augusten Burroughs has lived the life of a madman, growing up is a dysfunctional family of both parents being mad.The fact that Augusten Burroughs works are madly popular is potentially worrisome, as it must be assumed that many readers cannot separate fact from fiction. While the collection of "short stories (some people characterize them as "essays") Magical Thinking is still mostly hilariously funny, his memoirs Running With Scissors. A memoir, Dry: A Memoir and A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father are generally passed of and believed to be autobiographical.It will be curious to see how long Augusten Burroughs can keep up this pretense, and where his work will go in the future. For the time being, he has published a book which fits the bill and cleverly balanced on the same edge of autobiography, incorporating fictional elements from his previous works, while suggesting that the work is autobiographical. It is also very likely that This is how. Proven aid in overcoming shyness, molestation, fatness, spinsterhood, grief, disease, lushery, decrepitude & more. For young and old alike. is written as a bridge, to enable Burroughs a transition to a different type of fiction.This is how. Proven aid in overcoming shyness, molestation, fatness, spinsterhood, grief, disease, lushery, decrepitude & more. For young and old alike. is styled as a self-help manual to overcome various mental conditions and psychological disorders. The self-help manual is a popular genre, not often used as a framework for fiction. In This is how, the autobiographical persona Augusten Burroughs claims to have overcome a number of his personality disorders, previously described in his autobiographical fiction. Thus, Burroughs reaches out a helping hand to readers with any type of mental problems.This is how has its funny moments, but is not nearly as funny as earlier works. It is both a satire on contemporary society, the genre of self-help manuals and the whole well-being industry around it, and, one may surmise, the gullibility of some readers to believe in the autobiographical persona of Augusten Burroughs. Unlike "real" self-help manuals, This is how does not have a table of contents of an index, preventing readers from looking up particular problems or skipping to their own issue. Instead, readers have to go through the whole book.Most of the disorders in This is how are 'real' or 'veritable', but a number are ludicrous. The first, "How to Ride an Elevator" is much on a par with some of the best stories in Magical Thinking, including razor-sharp dialogue:She was looking at me with an expression of incredulity mixed with boldness. The highlights in her spiky hair had a greenish cast in the unflattering elevator lighting and her lipstick provided her with an upper lip that I saw she did not possess."I said, it's not that bad," and she gave me that frank, eye-brows up, let's-be-real-here, look. "Whatever it is that happened, it can't possibly be as bad as it looks on your face. How 'bout tring on a smile for size. And if you're all out, I've got one you can borrow."My first thought was, "It's leaking out of me? People can see it?"My second thought was, "Die, bitch." ( p. 2)This is how is an enjoyable read, although towards the end, some guru-speak fatigue seeps in, and originality feels a bit stretched.Augusten Burroughs has a very peculiar sense of humor that mixes the hilarious with the most horrific. This is how compares well with Magical Thinking, omitting some of the more morally objectionable issues of the novels and memoirs.Augusten Burroughs seems to occupy quite a unique niche in American letters, that could perhaps be best characterized as postmodern satire.
    • 3/5
      Chock full of little gems.
    • 3/5
      I'm a fan of Augusten Burroughs' writing, so when I discovered his latest, I naturally felt like I needed to read it. It wasn't until I took a good look at it that I realized it wasn't his typical memoir-type book, but an actual, "for real" self-help book. I'm not at all a fan of self-help books, but I figured it was Burroughs, so it had to be fairly good. Almost all the other reviews I've read for this book begin with the disclaimer that this is NOT like Burroughs' other works. And that's true. It's not. I'm not going to lie -- I did have some trouble getting through this one, and found my mind wandering quite often. I did this one on audio, just as I have most, if not all, of Burroughs' other books. He reads his own audiobooks, and this is undoubtedly one of the reasons I've come to love him. He does an excellent job & I love to just listen to him read. So quite honestly, had I not been listening to his voice reading this self-help book, I may have given up without finishing. So does that mean I didn't like this book? Not exactly. It means that I don't like the self-help genre. I've read very little self-help, so I'm not sure how to compare this to others of that type. There were things in this book that I agreed with, and others that I didn't. There were things that made me ponder, and things that I felt that I tuned out because they weren't very relevant to me. As with Burroughs' previous works, I most enjoy his personal anecdotes & stories, and those were the aspects I most enjoyed in this book as well. My guess is that as a self-help book, this is a little unconventional in some respects, but I suspect that it has probably really spoken to some of its readers, which is a good thing. It makes me curious to know in which direction Burroughs will go with his next publication.
    • 5/5


      Wow. Thank you Augusten Burroughs for this book.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. It is actually helpful and not some sort of cynical mean spirited satire of self-help books. As readers with Burroughs' works can attest to, he has seen and experienced it all. Perhaps not "all" in the grand scheme of things but pretty damn close.

      I especially like the chapter that dealt with hope. It was called How to Lose a Child. That one was incredibly thought-provoking and taught me some tidbit about history that I never knew: Ernest Shackleton and the Endurance. That almost made me cry as did that entire chapter.

      Essentially, if you are looking for a book to hold your hand and sugarcoat everything, this is not the book for you. However, if you are looking for a book that is raw, honest, and straight up tells you that everything will not be okay, then pick up this book and enjoy.
    • 3/5
      A big departure for Mr. Burroughs. I think it was a book he had to write to slay his demons. Full of insight and wisdom from someone who’s swum through shit and come out the other side.
    • 4/5
      Common sense advice for anyone needing a rational approach to the problems they're encountering in life.
    • 4/5
      Wrung me out entirely - wasn't expecting it at all.
    • 5/5
      My favorite of Burroughs' books. A self help book from an admittedly screwed up man, but he provides some incredibly deep insights. This is going to be one of those books that I buy and let people "borrow" and buy again and "lend" again and over and over and over. Chapters Include, but are not limited to:How to get the jobHow to be thinHow to be fatHow to find loveHow to finish your drinkHow to get over your addiction to your pastGo out and pick this up immediately!
    • 4/5
      The author's own take on self-help, negating many widely touted methods based on his own considerable experiences. Interesting, informative, intellectually appealing, his approach just plain makes sense. Often crass with blunt, no-holds-barred statements regarding very touching and tragic situations, he brings humor, common sense, and brutal honesty into the self-help arena.
    • 1/5
      This is not what I was expecting at all, but I hate giving up on books.
    • 4/5
      I liked this enough to buy the Kindle edition. Some essays not so much - others were excellent. Nuggets of good advice throughout.
    • 5/5
      I like the author's straight forward style. A lot of his advice is things that you have read before in magazines or self-help books, but because he is so blatently honest, it causes you to really stop and think about the advice. Reminds me of He's Just not that into you
    • 2/5
      I am not really sure how to write a review for " This is How: Help For The Self" because I am not sure if this is Burroughs idea of a joke or a serious self help book. To be honest I DID NOT like this book if it was serious or a joke. Burroughs seems like a ass who was required to write this book as part of his contract t his publisher.
    • 4/5
      Burroughs tells how to clench your teeth and move forward, tough as it may be. Some of his advice left me with a "well, duh" feeling; most was thoughtful. The inspiring chapters "How to Identify Love by What It's Not" and "How to LIve Unhappily Ever After." His wit, although searing at times, entertains.
    • 5/5
      Augusten Burroughs provides methods of overcoming numerous obstacles in our own psyches like: grief, shyness, lushery and spinsterhood to name a few. This advice coming from a realist is honest and darkly humorous at the same time. He covers every topic that is the bread and butter for psychologists everywhere. I am not a fan of self help. I have seen people go down dangerous and illegal avenues after reading some self help books available on the market. This is not that kind of self help. You aren’t required to travel the world spending money you don’t have or buying a bunch of vitamins you can’t pronounce. This is the stuff that we already know, but are too lazy to face. To use the now famous cliché; I had several ah-ha moments while reading this and getting stomach cramps because I was laughing so hard. This is the one self help book I will recommend to everyone.
    • 3/5
      I think this is a very good self-help book. I just loved how I was able to relate to one of the many thing's it covers. It has it to where anyone can relate to something. I learned very much from this book. On how to deal with people when I am not in my oh so swell mood and to even be able to help friends and or family with problems. I plan on recommending this book to all my friends and family. This was my first self help book. I was never really into them I thought they weren't for me but I was wrong with this one. Definitely recommend this to others.
    • 4/5
      Maybe if I'd had more exposure to Burroughs, I would have rated this lower. I jumped in without having read anything of his before and was pleasantly surprised; I had nothing with which to compare it.I didn't like this at first, but I think I was expecting short stories. I'd heard that Burroughs was a bit like David Sedaris (whom I love), and that's what I was looking forward to. These are not short stories. It took me a while to get into because I needed to change my frame of mind.This is not your standard book of short stories. These are short stories told through the medium of a self-help book.It's not quite a self-help book. It's not quite short stories. But whatever they are, they are lovely. I laughed out loud at least a half dozen times. I almost cried. It was a creative, new way of telling stories, and Burroughs gave a fresh perspective on quite a few issues from dealing with depression to the loss of a loved one. The issues are heavy, but he talks about them with care and love.Received through Goodreads First Reads.
    • 4/5
      Uncle Augie tells it allMy best friend was a little shocked when I explained that I’d read none of Augusten Burroughs’ memoirs and had never even seen the movie. “I gather he had an unconventional upbringing,” I said. My friend looked at me goggle-eyed.So, I am not an Augusten Burroughs fan, and I’m significantly less a fan of the self-help genre. Why did I pick up this book? Well, it really was an unintimidating size, a factor which should never be underestimated. And the book has buzz. I like to read what people are talking about. But, perhaps most of all, I was expecting a self-help satire—I mean, look at the full title. But the joke was on me, because despite a little irreverent humor, Mr. Burroughs appears to be quite sincere in his advice giving.Certainly, I paused a few times and wondered at his qualifications as an advice-provider, beyond, apparently, having made quite a few mistakes in his life. I didn’t always agree with his suggestions, though most had the feel of good common sense that you sometimes need to hear from someone else. The author appears to be dispensing advice with kindness. What surprised me the most was that I kept turning pages, reading the book from cover to cover in an afternoon. It held my interest.I think this was due to the breadth of topics covered. Some chapters were longer than others, but Mr. Burroughs kept things moving along swiftly. There was never a chance to grow bored. Each chapter is presented as a “How to,” and they are as follows:How to Ride an ElevatorHow to Feel Like Sh*tHow to Find LoveHow to Be FatHow to Be ThinHow to Feel Sorry for YourselfHow to Be ConfidentHow to FailHow to Shatter ShameHow to See the Truth Behind the TruthHow to End Your LifeHow to Remain UnhealedWhy Having It All Is NotHow to Get Over Your Addiction to the PastHow to Be a Good Mental PatientHow to Make Yourself Uncomfortable (And Why You Should)How to Finish Your DrinkHow to Hold on to Your Dream Or Maybe NotHow to Identify Love by Knowing What It’s NotHow to Live Unhappily Ever AfterHow to Feel Less RegretHow to Stop Being Afraid of Your AngerHow to Be SickHow to Lose Someone You LoveHow to Let a Child DieHow to Change the World by YourselfThis is Why These may not seem like typical self-help topics, but I promise you, if there isn’t something here that has resonance in your life, well, you lead a charmed life indeed. And, as you may gather by some of these chapter headings, some of it gets heavy. Difficult topics are handles with sensitivity.I’m not entirely sure who this book is aimed at. I suppose if you’re already a Burroughs fan, you’ll just enjoy this visit with a well-meaning friend. And if you’re a big consumer of self-help books, this is a buffet, with a little bit of everything. I’m neither, and this was not a book I really need to read—and yet, I don’t regret having done so. Perhaps the advice will come in handy someday.