Burroughs' debut memoir, Running with Scissors—the improbably hilarious and true story of how his mother gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist—spent four consecutive years on the Times bestseller list, and has sold over 2.5 million copies. The Washington Post called it "a golden effervescence of invention and wit that stuns you with its audacity and beauty and powerful love of being alive." (A Golden Globe-nominated film version, executive produced by Brad Pitt and starring Annette Benning and Joseph Cross, as Augusten, was released in 2006.)

Burroughs' new memoir, A Wolf at the Table, is his most personal and unexpected to date, a self-described quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain. A harrowing, poignant and ultimately redemptive book about his complicated relationship with his father ("a shadow presence"), Wolf is the highly-anticipated companion piece to Scissors, which was mainly about his mother; it finally reveals "why he was running."

Augusten Burroughs' other books include Dry, his sobering, insightful memoir about his wild days as a hot shot ad man in New York; two hilarious essay collections, Magical Thinking and Possible Side Effects; and a novel, Sellevision, which is being turned into a feature film. He is currently writing a holiday book, You Better Not Cry, and is in the initial stages of developing an original, hour-long weekly comedy/drama series for the Showtime network. People magazine writes that Burroughs "extracts something funny from every shred of his own warped experience."

Augusten Burroughs' lectures and readings are a tour de force performance—funny, moving, and inspiring. They draw sell-out audiences to theatres, campuses and lecture halls across the country. His live performances display the same dry wit and eye for the absurd that have made his books so wildly popular. A natural and gifted storyteller, Burroughs delves into his own bizarre and disturbing, but ultimately life-affirming childhood and adulthood. He inspires audiences to embrace humor, accept difference, overcome challenges, and create the conditions for their own success, showing us why he is that rare breed of author—a world-class writer who can go from paper to podium without losing any of the force, vitality, and sophistication of the written word.