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 enlarge | Author: Augusten Burroughs
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $11.99
You Save: $12.96 (52%)
New (55) Used (26) Collectible (11) from $11.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 1900
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.6 x 1.1
ISBN: 0312342020
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780312342029
ASIN: 0312342020
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Great book for a great price. Buy risk free and enjoy...will ship promptly in a bubble wrap mailer...gently read through one time.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not good. September 30, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First let me say, that I am a big fan of Augusten Burroughs. I will also say that I was aware that this book wasn't going to be funny so I had no expectations of that. I also listened to this book on CD, as I did all of his other books. I will also say that I did in fact listen to the entire book including all songs accompanied with it. I would like to tell you that all of those people who gave a poor review were telling the truth. I have a BIG problem with how Burroughs read this book. Whoever told him to read so incredibly slowly should be fired. It distracted from the story and was so slow, you'd forget his point by the time he got to the end of his sentence. It was like he was reading to a very dumb child or someone who has no grasp of the English language. The director of this audiobook, in my opinion, gave him very bad direction. I have always enjoyed listening to him read his books in the past. This was an unwelcome departure. Yes, his father obviously has narcissistic and sadistic tendencies, and I can listen to just about anything, but the animal abuse occurred frequently throughout the story and I truly had severe difficulty listening to it. Burroughs, has valid complaints about his father's parenting skills, but the story is also peppered with accounts that basically make Burroughs look like a whiny brat at the time and a whiny adult now complaining about the most minute details. A lot of the things his father did, with not paying attention to Augusten, or being particularly affectionate, was no different than the average overworked, overstressed father. This is one to skip. Also, by the way, the music was NOT GOOD and added very little. Someone on this site, mentioned the "funeral dirge", that is a great description of one of the songs. Burroughs should stop rehashing his life story. It is soooo done, between him and his brother's writing, enough, please. I encourage Burroughs to try fiction again. I really enjoyed his Sellevision novel. This is definitely one to pass on, at the very least don't listen to his CD between the awful music and his excruciatingly slow reading, there is no chance of enjoying it.
 A Brutally Honest Story September 28, 2008
In past books written by Augusten Burroughs, we read about his dysfunctional childhood. We laughed with him and we cried with him, often wondering how he managed to survive. With A Wolf at the Table, Burroughs explores the relationship between father and son, and the extremes of love and hate. His writing is insightful and honest, not only writing about his relationship with his father, but everyone's need for love and validation. He suffered as a child, but emerged as an adult full of hope and promise.
Having read all of Burroughs' books, I thought I knew what to expect in A Wolf at the Table. Having experienced the trauma, I expected Burroughs to write in a cool, detached manor. He didn't. Burroughs used both humor and suspense to evoke tears, laughter, and horror in his readers.
A Wolf at the Table is a brutally honest story told from a child's point of view. I wanted to cry for the child, but found myself cheering for the man that emerged from the pits of hell relatively unscathed.
Like Burroughs, Hate this book September 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have all of Burroughs' books and was really looking forward to A Wolf at the Table. But this is not just disappointing, it's out right annoying. The narrative is cloying, self pitying, desperate, whiney and not trust worthy. I understand that Burroughs has had a insanely difficult life, but whereas his other books deal with his past in humor and a wry eye, this one is a humorless and over the top retelling.
It feels as if the author had incidents that haven't fit into his other books and in an effort to fill the autobiography, he has padded the pages with intricate details from his (and his father's) very early years. It doesn't seem right to question Burroughs' honesty, but I have a very hard time believing his vivid high chair memories.
In fairness, I haven't been able to finish it yet, but that's because I embarrassed myself while reading it on a plane this weekend. I made a loud guttural sound and sighed "you've got to be freaking kidding me" when reading "We were to have a new septic system. At first I was wary, afraid of the equipment. The bulldozer was like a giant poisonous yellow spider tearing apart the land to lay its eggs."
I think this entire book would have made a very compelling and concise New Yorker article, but as a book...it's just a pathetic read.
 Another great read! September 20, 2008
"A Wolf at the Table" is the fourth Augusten Burroughs book I've read and I was not disappointed. It is very well written, insightful and heartbreaking. He shares thoughts and feelings few would ever admit. Break out the Kleenex for the last chapter. I suspect most readers will come away with a deeper appreciation of their own fathers, I know I did.
Good book, questionable memoir September 19, 2008
Burroughs is a very good writer. I'm convinced now. A Wolf at the Table is a very good book. However, like many other reviewers, I just don't think it is possible for an infant/toddler's brain to form long-term memories as Burroughs pushes on us in his book. Nor can I believe he can recall all of the minute details he writes of his life even when he is nine to twelve years old. This detail reads well, but is it all truly from memory or is it mostly embellished? Maybe I should give Burroughs a pass, but the history of the author's acknowldeged embellishment of his memoirs makes me doubt many of the larger dramas of this book. Gore Vidal, in his own memoir Palimpsest, gave a personal definition of a memoir: "a memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked." So, maybe he gets a pass.
Nevertheless, by the end of the book, I drank the Kool-Aid and it was largely due to the emotional--and thankfully, realistic--story at the book's end.
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