Lynn Redgrave

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (Picador, $14). I became an avid fan of Burroughs beginning with this hilarious, terrifying, moving memoir about growing up in the midst of abuse and madness. Listening to the author’s reading on audio while driving to and from Virginia at Christmas, I laughed, groaned, shrieked, and wept.

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Dry by Augusten Burroughs (Picador, $14). So then I had to actually read everything Burroughs has written. Dry continues his story, into working and drinking and “rehabbing.” It took me inside the torment and sometimes joy of Burroughs’ alcoholism and recovery, and once again I laughed and gasped for air. In fact, if I didn’t feel I ought to give time to others, I would make my third choice his Magical Thinking, for the deepest rendition of love that I have read.

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The Tricky Part by Martin Moran (Beacon, $24). I saw the author perform his brilliant one-man play about childhood sexual violation. Now it is glorious memoir. To weep with. To take hope from. Because Martin Moran gives us all hope. And courage. By showing us that the broken pieces of our souls can come together and make a whole that we could never have dreamed possible.

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Writing Home by Alan Bennett (Picador, $20). So English. So witty. So wry. So hilarious. So poignant. Having performed in Bennett’s Talking Heads, I pick up this book any time I feel homesick for his England, his world.

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My Antonia by Willa Cather (Mariner, $6). Something about pioneer women just excites me. I read this first when I moved to America in the early 1970s. It was my introduction to the country and to its great literature. And my overly romantic heart was filled to the brim.

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Possessing the Secret of Joy

The Color Purple

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